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THE  PERSONAL  AND  LITERARY  RELATIONS  OF 
HEINRICH  HEINE  TO  KARL  IMMERMANN. 


A  Thesis  Submitted  to  the  Faculty  of  the  Depart- 
ment OF  Literature,  Science,  and  the  Arts  of  the 
University  of  Michigan  for  the  Degree  of  Doctor 
OF  Philosophy. 


BY 


GRACE  MABEL  BACON,  A.  M., 

instructor  in  GERMAN 

Mount  Holyoke  College. 
1910. 


THE  PERSONAL  AND  LITERARY  RELATIONS  OF 
HEINRICH  HEINE  TO  KARL  IMMERMANN. 


K  U 


A  Thesis  Submitted  to  the  Faculty  of  the  Depart- 
ment OF  Literature,  Science,  and  the  Arts  of  the 
University  of  Michigan  for  the  Degree  of  Doctor 
OF  Philosophy. 


BY  

Of 


GRACE  MABEL  BACON,  A.  M., 

instructor  in  GERMAN 

Mount  Holyoke  College. 
1910. 


To 

PROFESSOR  ELLEN  C.  HINSDALE. 

As  AN  Expression  of  Gratitude  for  the  Constant  Help, 
Encouragement  and  Inspiration  Received  prom  Her 
Throughout  my  Study  of  the  German  Language  and 
Literatures. 


9.11033 


OF  THt 

UNfVERSITV 

Of 


THE  PERSONAL  AND  LITERARY  RELATIONS  OF  HEIN- 
RIOH  HEINE  TO  KARL  IMMERMANN. 


Introduction. 

The  subject  of  the  relations  between  the  two  poets,  Heinrich 
Heine  and  Karl  Immermann,  has  been  either  ignored  entirely  or 
treated  with  less  seriousness  than  it  deserves.  Only  recently 
have  critics  realized  that  there  were  problems  here  to  be  solved, 
and  yet  no  one  has  thus  far  attempted  their  solution.  Friends  of 
Immermann  have  been  unfair  in  their  statements  of  the  situation, 
variously  affirming  that  the  relation  was  an  unnatural  one,  to  be 
deplored  by  all  who  sympathized  with  Immermann,  that  it  was  a 
one-sided  friendship,  that  Immermann  found  Heine's  attentions 
oppressive  and  regretted  the  bonds  that  held  them  together. 
Prejudiced  against  Heine,  they  have  been  loath  to  admit  the 
existence  of  any  positive  friendship  between  them  and  have  neg- 
lected incontrovertible  evidence.  On  the  other  hand,  Heine's 
friends  have  passed  lightly  over  the  subject,  overlooking  the 
significance  of  the  correspondence  and  assuming  that  Heine  could 
not  possibly  have  entertained  any  real  affection  for  a  man  of 
Immermann's  type.  It  shall  be  my  object  to  prove  these  ideas 
erroneous  by  establishing  the  exact  biographical  relations  between 
the  two  poets,  after  which  I  shall  address  myself  to  the  psychologi- 
cal problems  opened  up  by  the  former  considerations. 

Karl  Leberecht  Immermann  was  born  in  Magdeburg,  April 
24th,  1796,  and  died  in  Diisseldorf,  August  25th,  1840.  A  glance 
at  these  dates  reveals  the  historical  and  literary  background  of 
his  life,  which  is  seen  to  lie  between  two  great  world  movements — 
the  French  Revolution  of  1789  and  the  Revolution  of  1848 — and 
to  coincide  almost  perfectly  with  the  reign  of  Frederick  William 
III,  while  the  Wars  of  Liberation  in  Germany  and  the  July  Revolu- 
tion of  1830  fall  within  the  poet's  experience.  The  roots  of  his 
being  were  firmly  fixed  in  North  German  soil — a  fact  that  will  be- 
come of  increasing  interest  to  us  as  we  contrast  his  traditions  with 
those  of  Heine.  His  ancestors  from  the  time  of  the  Thirty  Years 
War  had  been  advancing  by  the  customary  stage — from  peasant, 
through  artisan,  teacher,  and  preacher,  until  in  Immermann's 


father  we  have  one  of  those  characteristic  Prussian  officials,  con- 
scious of  the  importance  of  his  position,  trained  in  the  school  of 
severest  discipline,  a  man  of  few  words,  of  unlimited  power  over 
his  household,  of  unyielding  adherence  to  duty,  capable  of  in- 
spiring in  those  nearest  him  a  feeling  of  deepest  respect  and  awe. 
He  directed  conscientiously  the  education  of  his  sons.  Historical 
works  rather  than  fairy  tales  were  put  into  their  hands  to  read 
and  the  deeds  of  real  German  heroes  stimulated  their  imagination. 
In  his  "  Memorabilien"  Immermann  has  described  most  refresh- 
ingly his  boyhood  reminiscences;  how  the  first  book  that  he  read — 
Rothmann's  "History  of  Magdeburg" — made  him  hate  Tilly  no 
less  than  the  Devil  and  revere  the  memory  of  Gustavus  Adolphus^ 
whom  his  father  never  mentioned  by  any  other  name  than  Ger- 
many's Savior.  The  first  ancestor,  in  fact,  had  come  from  Sweden 
as  sergeant  in  Gustavus  Adolphus's  army,  while  Immermann's 
own  father  had  served  under  Frederick  the  Great  in  the  Seven 
Years'  War  and  has  afterwards  spent  years  as  an  auditeur  in  his 
army.  Prussian  to  the  core,  the  son  grew  up  to  reverence  the 
traditions  of  his  fatherland,  which  his  father  was  careful  to  instill 
into  him;  the  latter's  whole  personality  was  that  of  a  being  of  a 
higher  order  and  had  the  effect  of  inspiring  in  the  sons  a  worship 
of  all  great  historical  figures,  such  as  the  times  of  Frederick  had 
called  forth.  The  boy's  early  conception  of  the  fatherland  was 
embodied  in  the  person  of  Frederick  the  Great  and  later  in  the 
figures  of  Frederick  William  and  Louise,  whom  he  had  seen  in 
Magdeburg  when  he  was  nine  years  old  and  who  on  that  occasion, 
called  forth  all  his  enthusiastic  affection.  Such,  in  truth,  was  the 
deep  sense  of  reverence  for  great  Germans  which  the  father  im- 
pressed upon  his  children,  that  hero-worship  became  with  them  a 
sort  of  religion,  and  Immermann  wonders  whether  such  surrender 
to  great  personalities  is  not  after  all  a  thorough  preparation  for 
religious  feeling  in  children.  In  1839  he  confesses  in  a  letter  to 
Marianne  Niemeyer,  his  future  wife:  "It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose 
"that  any  remarkable  effect  is  produced  upon  young,  immature 
"  minds  through  religious  instruction.  In  that  way  they  learn  to 
"  know  the  Divine  only  theoretically,  as  it  were.  All  piety  is  based 
"on  reverence  and  begins  with  reverence  for  man  *  *  *  I  was 
"  brought  up  quite  irreligiously  and  in  spite  of  it,  I  became  in  my 
"own  way  godly,  because  the  awe-inspiring  figure  of  my  father 
"shone  forth  as  an  example  in  my  earliest  days.' ' 

In  his  boyhood  Immermann  lived  through  the  dark  days  of 
Prussia's  downfall.  He  saw  the  flood  of  defeated  soldiers  pour  into 
Magdeburg  after  the  Battle  of  Jena  and  the  disgraceful  surrender 

6 


of  his  native  town,  which  was  separated  from  Prussia  and  joined 
to  the  newly  founded  kingdom  of  Westphalia.  The  sense  of  ruin 
and  destruction  and  treason  brought  about  by  the  influx  of  Ney's 
soldiers  left  an  indelible  impression  upon  him. 

In  his  "  Memorabilien' '  Immermann  nowhere  mentions  his 
mother;  his  silence  speaks  louder  than  words  the  proof  that  her 
influence  upon  his  early  life  was  unimportant.  From  this  fact, 
Stahr  explains  the  preponderating  masculine  element  in  his 
nature,  the  rugged  austerity,  the  harshness,  and  in  his  lyrics  the 
lack  of  tenderness  and  delicacy — something  which  he  never  over- 
came but  which  was  in  some  measure  atoned  for  by  a  singular 
charm  of  strength,  of  virility.  In  the  above-mentioned  letter  to 
Marianne,  April  24,  1839,  Immermann  does  give  us  some  idea  of 
his  mother's  personality  and  its  general  effect  upon  him.  He  con- 
"fesses,  "  The  strangest  contradictions  are  united  in  me.  I  am  cold 
"and  warm,  just  and  unjust,  self-sacrificing  and  selfish,  frank  even 
*'to  excess  and  mysteriously  reserved,  hard  and  yielding,  very 
"clever  and  very  stupid.  Where  lies  the  unity?  Artists  com- 
"plain  that  they  cannot  catch  my  expression,  because  no  single 
"instant  in  it  is  like  the  next;  the  soul  could  present  no  smaller 
"difficulties  *  *  *  you  get  nearer  the  likeness  of  a  person,  if 
"  you  observe  the  stars  under  which  he  came  into  being.  Strange 
"circumstances  concurred  at  my  conception.  My  father,  forty- 
-'five  years  old,  my  mother  eighteen,  first  youth  and  approaching 
"  old  age  mingled  their  elements  in  my  being.  My  father  severe, 
"firm  as  iron,  rough,  hard;  my  mother  gentle,  immeasurably  yield- 
"ing.  That  explains  many  things  in  me.  The  contrast  between 
"  frost  and  fire,  between  rigid  and  pliant  was  indeed  the  law  under 
"which  the  hour  of  my  conception  fell.  In  me  appears  now  this 
"contrast  as  stern,  cold,  incorruptible  reason  beside  dreamy 
"imagination,  and  feeling  is  somewhat  obscured  by  this  contra- 
"  diction  *  *  *  " 

The  contrast  between  Immermann's  early  life  and  Heine's 
could  hardly  be  greater,  although  both  spent  the  most  impres- 
sionable years  of  their  lives  during  the  same  dark  period  of  Ger- 
many's history.  But  Heine  was  a  Jewish  lad,  born  at  Diisseldorf 
in  the  little  duchy  of  Berg  in  1797,  and  Diisseldorf  experienced  all 
the  vicissitudes  endured  by  the  border  towns  in  those  troubled 
years.  From  1795  to  1801  it  was  garrisoned  by  French  Revolution- 
ary troops  and  the  spirit  of  the  place  was  wholly  French.  Then 
from  1806  again  it  was  held  for  years  by  the  French  so  that  Heine's 
boyhood  was  spent  entirely  under  democratic  French  influence. 
We  can  imagine  him  in  play  hours  making  friends  with  the  French 


soldiers,  listening  rapturously  to  the  stories  of  hardship  and  thrill- 
ing adventures  told  by  Napoleon's  veterans,  following  the  old 
French  drummer,  Le  Grand,  through  the  streets  and  learning 
from  him  French  language,  politics,  and  history,  or  climbing  up 
on  the  back  of  the  old  Elector's  horse  to  look  down  upon  the  citi- 
zens as  they  paid  homage  to  their  new  Duke,  Joachim  Murat. 
The  soldiers  were  attracted  to  the  wayward,  precocious  boy  and 
loaned  him  French  books  to  read;  but  he  conceived  a  prejudice 
against  all  French  literature,  and  this  dislike,  he  tells  us,  was  in- 
creased by  his  French  teacher  at  the  Lyceum,  who  required  that 
his  students  write  French  verse  and  even  translate  a  part  of  the 
"  Messias' '  into  Alexandrines.  This,  however,  was  more  than  the 
boy  could  stand :  he  could  have  died  for  France,  but  never  would 
he  write  French  verse!  Heine  first  attended  a  Jewish  school, 
but  later  entered  the  Lyceum,  one  of  those  French  government 
schools,  organized  by  Napoleon  and  placed  under  the  control  of 
the  Minister  of  Public  Instruction.  As  it  was  designed  to  further 
his  political  schemes,  French  was  made  the  medium  of  instruction 
in  all  subjects,  one-third  of  the  time,  besides,  being  devoted  to 
French  Grammar  and  Literature.  The  rector  was  a  Roman 
Catholic  priest  and  the  teachers  were  nearly  all  Catholic.  This 
same  Rector  Schallmeyer,  so  the  poet  tells  us  in  the ''  Gestandnisse' ' 
suggested  often  to  Heine's  mother  that  she  allow  him  to  be  edu- 
cated by  the  Catholic  priesthood,  but  his  mother,  besides  being 
more  ambitious  for  a  successful  practical  career  for  her  eldest  son, 
could  not,  as  a  strict  deist,  make  the  garb  of  a  priest  seem  becom- 
ing to  him.  With  much  glee  Heine  pictures  himself  in  the  role  of 
Roman  Catholic  priest,  cardinal,  even  pope,  and  declares  that 
his  mother  regretted  deeply  not  having  followed  the  advice  of 
her  liberal  old  friend,  who,  she  concluded,  so  early  understood  the 
physical  and  spiritual  atmosphere  that  would  be  most  salutary 
for  him. 

While  in  the  case  of  Immermann's  education  we  have  seen 
that  the  father  played  the  chief  r61e,  directing  the  boy's  reading 
with  the  purpose  of  fostering  hero-worship  and  setting  before  his 
sons  ideals  of  manliness  as  embodied  in  great  German  personalities, 
with  Heine  the  reverse  was  the  rule.  His  father  was  an  easy- 
going business  man,  taking  no  marked  interest  in  his  son's  educa- 
tion; but  his  mother  directed  his  school  work  from  the  beginning. 
She  was  a  woman  of  exceptional  mental  culture,  a  disciple  of  Vol- 
taire and  Rousseau,  and  her  hobby,  as  her  son  tells  us  m  his  "  Mem- 
oiren"  was  the  science  of  education.  Thus  we  are  told  that  she 
made  out  his  program  of  studies  and  decided  what  career  he  should 

8 


follow,  choosing  one  after  another,  which  were  all  equally  distaste- 
ful to  him  and  equally  foreign  to  his  whole  nature.  Utterly 
lacking  in  appreciation  of  his  poetic  temperament,  she  opposed 
his  following  the  profession  of  poet.  In  her  opinion  it  was  not 
respectable;  a  poet  was  a  poor,  ragged  devil  who  made  "occasional 
poems' '  for  a  few  dollars  and  finally  died  in  the  infirmary .^  Not 
from  his  mother  did  he  inherit  his  taste  for  the  fantastic  and 
romantic.  "  She  had  a  fear  of  poetry,  took  away  every  romance 
"that  she  found  in  my  hands,  did  not  allow  me  to  visit^the  theatre, 
"  denied  me  all  participation  in  popular  amusements,  kept  watch 
"of  my  associates,  scolded  the  maids  if  they  told  ghost  stories  in 
"my  presence, — ^in  short,  she  did  everything  possible  to  keep 
"superstition  and  poetry  away  from  me.' '  Her  opposition  caused 
Heine  to  look  back  later  with  deepest  regret  on  the  fruitlessness 
of  those  unsettled  years,  in  which  he  dutifully  followed  his  mother's 
wishes.  From  his  father  he  doubtless  inherited  his  personal  fastidi- 
ousness, his  lack  of  business  ability  and  of  all  sense  of  money  value. 
But  in  spite  of  this  rather  negative  influence,  Heine  worshipped 
the  memory  of  his  father  as  the  one  human  being  of  all  others 
whom  he  most  loved.  In  his  "  Memoiren' '  he  says  that  even  after 
a  lapse  of  more  than  twenty-five  years,  he  could  hardly  realize 
that  he  had  actually  lost  his  father.  The  chief  characteristic  of 
Samson  Heine,  according  to  his  son's  testimony,  was  his  bound- 
less enthusiasm  for  life;  "his  voice  penetrated  directly  to  the 
heart- as  if  it  did  not  need  the  way  through  the  ear  at  all."  ^  Nor 
was  he  a  strict  Israelite,  but  indifferent  in  his  religious  views, 
and  while  the  son  was  expected  to  observe  the  Jewish  customs,  he 
was  not  burdened  with  religious  instruction  from  his  parents. 
As  the  family  occupied  a  position  of  prominence  in  Diisseldorf 
and  their  house  was  so  located  as  to  enjoy  the  distinction  of  having 
a  street-altar  erected  before  it  during  the  solemn  Catholic  proces- 
sions, the  boy  must  have  been  greatly  impressed  by  the  pomp  and 
ceremonial  of  those  festivals,  which  the  light-hearted,  easy-going 
inhabitants  enjoyed  no  less  than  their  carnivals.  As  for  the 
Mosaic  law,  the  wayward  boy  easily  found  means  of  observing  or 
evading  it,  as  it  suited  his  convenience.  He  would  not  help  pass 
the  water-buckets  during  a  conflagration,  for  example,  because 
it  was  the  Jewish  Sabbath,  but  he  found  a  way  of  evading  the  law 
forbidding  the  picking  of  grapes  on  the  Sabbath  by  biting  them  off 
the  vines  with  his  teeth. 

If  we  look  further  at  those  happy,  romantic  days  in  Diissel- 
dorf, we  shall  better  understand  the  difference  in  the  temperament 
of  the  two  poets  that  we  are  to  study.     The  first  book  that  Heine 

9 


read  was  "Don  Quixote,"  while  "Gulliver's  Travels"  was  also  a 
great  favorite.  We  can  see  him  stealing  away  on  beautiful  May 
mornings  to  some  secluded  nook  in  the  old  castle  gardens  and 
reading  through  long,  dreamy  days  the  thrilling  adventures  of 
his  heroes,  with  only  the  birds  and  flowers  and  breezes  and  water- 
fall for  company.  A  more  charming  picture  would  be  hard  to  find 
than  that  which  Heine  gives  us  in  Chapter  XVI  of  "Die  Stadt 
Lucca.' '  Or  we  may  imagine  him  wandering  dreamily  among  the 
ruins  of  the  Castle  on  the  Rhine  or  reciting  the  most  beautiful  of 
all  Uhland's  songs,  when  he  was  sure  to  hear  the  nixies  in  the 
Rhine  mimic  his  words  and  repeat  with  sighs  and  groans  and  comic 
pathos: 

Ein  Geisterlaut  herunterschall 
Ade,  du  Schafer  mein! 
Their  mockery,  however,  he  did  not  mind,  but  only  recited  the 
louder,  in  order  to  overcome  the  awe  inspired  in  him  by  the  old 
ruins,  for  they  were  haunted  by  a  lady  without  a  head,  and  his 
heart  beat  faster  as  he  imagined  that  he  heard  the  rustle  of  her 
long  silk  train. 

In  such  a  romantic  region,  with  its  medieval  superstitions,  its 
myths  and  legends  about  the  castle,  and  its  Catholic  cult,  Heine's 
childhood  was  one  of  great  happiness.  Everything  stimulated 
his  imagination  romantically;  all  Nature  sympathized  with  him 
in  his  joyous  and  pensive  moods  and  he  was  "the  darling  of 
water-nymphs  and  fairies." 

These  few  paragraphs  will  perhaps  be  sufficient  to  bring  out 
the  contrasts  in  the  boyhood  influences  of  our  two  poets.  While 
Immermann's  early  surroundings  fettered  him  more  and  more 
closely  to  the  traditions  of  Germany  and  were  responsible  for  his 
enthusiasm  for  German  nationality,  his  feeling  of  duty  first  of  all 
to  Prussia,  and  his  genuine  and  sound  monarchical  principles, 
Heine's  Jewish  descent,  his  home  training,  his  schooling,  and  his 
constant  association  with  the  French  tended  to  make  him  a  cos- 
mopolite. To  emphasize  still  further  the  contrast  between  the 
two  poets,  let  us  consider  their  exact  place  in  literary  history,  the 
literary  inheritance  to  which  they  fell  heir,  and  the  use  that  each 
made  of  his  legacy. 

The  wealth  consisted,  first,  of  the  new  ethical  and  esthetic 
ideas  and  ideals  that  made  the  great  days  of  Weimar,  and,  secondly, 
of  the  vast  material  opened  up  by  the  Romantic  School — ^the 
literatures  of  the  South,  the  Orient,  and  England,  of  the  whole 
Middle  Age  and  Germany's  past.  Now  Immermann  consciously 
projected  himself  into  the  world  of  Goethe  and  Schiller,  Shake- 

10 


speare,  Calderon  and  Tieck,  and  since  his  ambition  was  always  to 
exert  his  influence  on  the  public  from  the  stage,  he  began  his 
dramatic  career  by  taking  them  as  his  models.  Goethe  he  later 
lost  sympathy  for,  when,  in  accordance  with  the  theory  developed 
in  his  "  Ajax''  essay,  he  had  to  conclude  that  the  author  of  "Iphi- 
genie'^  and  ''Tasso"  was  not  contributing  to  the  creation  of  a 
national  drama.  When,  however,  Immermann  found  out  the  real 
direction  of  his  genius  and  wrote  his  novel  "Die  Epigonen"  and 
his  "  Memorabilien,"  he  again  paid  homage  to  his  master  Goethe, 
as  also  in  his  drama  "Merlin."  Schiller's  influence  also  waxed 
and  waned  and  waxed  again:  Immermann's  "Andreas  Hofer,'' 
an  historical  drama  written  in  1827  and  bearing  at  first  the  title 
"Das  Trauerspiel  in  Tirol"  was  in  conscious  imitation  of  the 
material  and  style  of  "Wilhelm  Tell."  Tieck  was  one  of  his 
earliest  and  latest  models  and  powerfully  influenced  his  more 
romantic  productions.  For  the  greater  part  of  his  life  Immer- 
mann was  led  astray  by  his  romantic  sympathies  and  was  long 
in  discovering  his  proper  field.  In  fact,  he  was  never  able  to  free 
himself  completely  from  romantic  influences,  not  even  in  his 
realistic  treatment  of  a  popular  historical  material  or  in  his  humor- 
ous mock  epic,  "  Tulifantchen,' '  although  in  both  works  he  satir- 
izes the  movement;  his  subjects  generally  remained  romantic:  an 
old  English  legend,  a  Charlemagne  story,  a  southern  tale,  in  every 
instance  some  tragic  or  fantastic  material  treated  with  romantic 
extravagance  and  symbolism. 

While  Heine  was  also  a  pupil  of  the  Romanticists,  his  genius 
exalted  him  far  above  them  and  placed  him  in  a  class  by  himself. 
He  confesses  that  he  was  highly  delighted  over  the  malicious  title 
of  "romantique  defroque"  bestowed  upon  him  by  a  Frenchman, 
for,  in  spite  of  his  exterminating  campaigns  against  Romanticism, 
he  always  remained  a  Romanticist,  even  in  a  higher  degree  than 
he  realized.  After  he  had  wielded  the  deadliest  blows  against  the 
Romantic  poets  in  Germany,  an  infinite  longing  for  the  blue- 
flower  in  the  Dreamland  of  Romanticism  overcame  him,  and  he 
seized  the  enchanted  lyre  and  sang  a  song  in  which  he  surrendered 
himself  with  all  the  blissful  extravagances,  all  the  moonlight 
intoxication,  all  the  sweet  delirium  of  nightingale  music  to  the 
once  so  beloved  melody.  "I  know,"  he  continues,  "it  was  the 
"  4ast,  free  woodland  song  of  Romanticism,'  and  I  am  its  last 
"poet;  with  me  ended  the  old  lyric  school  of  the  Germans,  while 
"by  me  at  the  same  time  was  opened  the  new  school,  the  modern 
"  German  lyric.  This  double  significance  will  be  accorded  to  me 
"by  the  German  literary  historians.     It  does  not  become  me  to 

11 


"express  my  opinion  at  length  on  this  subject,  but  I  may  say  with 
"good  right,  that  in  the  history  of  German  Romanticism  I  deserve 
"prominent  mention  *  *  *  '?  ("  Gestandnisse' 0  And 
Romantic  elements  he  had  and  retained:  his  intense  subjectivity, 
which  he  never  overcame;  the  enthusiasm  with  which  he  opposed 
Rationalism;  the  readiness  with  which  he  adopted  the  simple 
form  and  sincere  tone  of  the  folk  poetry,  together  with  his  apprecia- 
tion of  the  world's  poetry  and  popular  traditions;  his  faith  in  the 
supremacy  of  genius  and  in  the  immeasurable  value  of  art  and  form, 
in  his  Weltschmerz;  his  nature-sense;  his  fondness  for  the  mysteri- 
ous, blood-curdling,  and  uncanny.  Through  his  conscious  imita- 
tion of  the  tone  and  rhythm  of  the  folksong  and  the  skill  with 
which  he  worked  over  old  material  like  that  of  the  "Lorelei" 
into  genuine  folk  poetry,  he  brought  new  life  into  German  litera- 
ture at  a  time  of  stagnation. 

But  what  distinguishes  Heine  from  the  other  Romanticists 
and  lifts  him  far  above  them  is  the  purely  human  note  of  love 
and  pain,  which  cannot  but  live  forever.  He  has  revealed  him- 
self with  freshness  and  originality,  matchless  realism  and  artistic 
freedom,  with  few  strokes  or  rich  coloring,  in  harmony  with  his 
mood,  as  no  one  before  him  had  ever  written.  Furthermore,  he 
is  set  apart  from  the  Romantic  School  by  his  remarkable  form 
sense  and  the  clear  outline  of  his  poems,  in  contrast  to  the  vague- 
ness and  wavering  outlines  of  the  Romanticists;  by  his  epigram- 
matic brevity — his  impressionistic  style;  by  his  neglect  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  except  in  so  far  as  they  help  him  to  express  experi- 
ences of  personal,  real  life,  and  by  his  scorn  of  the  intricate  metrical 
forms  taken  from  the  Romantic  and  Oriental  poetry :  he  adhered 
to  the  simple,  free  rhythm  of  the  folksong  and  its  consequent 
clear  thought. 


At  the  age  of  seventeen,  having  completed  the  course  in  the 
gymnasium  in  Magdeburg,  Immermann  entered  the  University 
of  Halle  for  the  study  of  law.  The  story  of  his  first  year's  experi- 
ence is  well  known :  how  Napoleon,  passing  through  Halle  in  the 
late  summer,  suspended  the  University  with  the  remark  that  he 
needed  soldiers,  not  students;  how  the  lad,  believing  himself  now 
free  from  the  stern  command  of  his  father  that  he  remain  there  a 
year  without  coming  home,  traveled  on  foot  to  Magdeburg,  and 
was  promptly  sent  back  to  Halle  again  to  study  under  private 
instruction.     After  the  Battle  of  Leipzig,  he  gained  his  father's 

12 


permission  to  join  the  army,  but  sickness  prevented  his  fighting 
until  the  last  campaign.  Then  he  was  drafted  into  the  first  de- 
tachment of  riflemen  in  the  Regiment  of  the  Guards  and  fought 
at  Leipzig  and  Belle- Alliance,  after  which  he  returned  to  the 
little  town  of  Halle  and  resumed  his  interrupted  studies,  which 
he  completed  two  years  later. 

Up  to  his  seventeenth  year,  Immermann,  who  from  his 
earUest  youth  had  felt  an  irresistible  propensity  for  the  dramatic, 
had  been  almost  completely  cut  off  from  the  theatre  through  the 
severity  of  his  home  training.  Now,  soon  after  entering  the 
University,  before  he  had  been  misled  by  any  false  taste,  he  had 
the  good  fortune  to  see  two  performances — "  Don  Carlos' '  and  "  Die 
Braut  von  Messina'' — by  Goethe's  famous  Weimar  Company, 
when  it  was  at  the  height  of  its  excellence.  "  It  was  not  a  question 
"of  pleasure,"  he  says,  "I  was  enchanted — enraptured;  the  old 
"church  in  which  the  stage  had  been  erected  was  for  me  a  con- 
"secrated  hall."  The  experience  awakened  all  his  slumbering 
talent  as  a  dramaturgist  and  bore  fruit  later  in  his  so-called 
"  Diisseldorfer  Anfange."  Immermann  was  greatly  favored  also 
in  an  old  uncle,  one  of  whose  hobbies  was  the  theatre,  and  as  a 
student  in  Halle,  the  nephew  went  often  to  the  great  farmhouse 
of  ''  Oheim  Yorick' '  a  few  miles  outside  Halle  and  there,  with 
members  of  the  family  and  with  fellow-students,  he  found  oppor- 
tunity for  many  gay,  theatrical  performances.  The  uncle  had  a 
particular  -  fondness  for  pastoral  plays  and  was  accustomed  to 
celebrate  all  festivals  in  the  family  by  an  open-air  performance 
of  plays  "  that  came  into  existence  like  the  poetry  of  remote  anti- 
quity: seldom  were  they  to  be  identified  with  any  definite  com- 
poser :  the  unconscious  poetic  sense  of  the  people  produced  them." 
In  the  "  Memorabilien' '  Immermann  has  given  us  an  incomparable 
picture  of  this  Uncle  Yorick,  who  sought  thus  to  make  up  for  a 
youth  of  privation  by  amusing  himself  with  all  the  diversions  that 
others  enjoy  when  they  are  young. 

Immermann's  university  career  had  an  unfortunate  close,  in 
that  he  came  into  conflict  with  the  powerful  Burschenschaft 
"Teutonia,"  which  had  assumed  a  sort  of  moral  oversight  of  the 
whole  student  body  and  tyrannically  punished  offences,  which 
its  own  members  were  all  too  prone  to  commit.  Finally  a  case 
of  ill-treatment  that  came  to  Immermann's  notice  aroused  his 
indignation  to  such  an  extent  that  he  protested  openly  and 
appealed  then  first  to  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  and  afterwards 
to  the  King  himself,  with  the  result  that  his  act  was  commended, 
the  association  dissolved,  and  the  academic  authorities  entrusted 

13 


with  full  power  to  punish  all  disturbances.  To  defend  himself 
against  the  furtive  attacks  of  the  offended  students,  Immermann 
wrote  a  little  pamphlet  entitled  "Ein  Wort  zur  Beherzigung" 
and  in  the  same  year  a  second  one  bearing  the  title:  "Letztes 
Wort  iiber  die  Streitigkeiten  der  Studierenden  zu  Halle."  This 
was  his  first  appearance  in  literature,  and  significant  for  the  reason 
that  it  was  not  an  effusion  of  his  poetic  talent,  but  a  testimony 
of  his  character.  It  has  been  pointed  out  how  easily  Immerman 
could  have  left  Halle  and  gone  to  some  other  university,  thus  avoid- 
ing all  unpleasantness;  but  probably  such  a  step  never  occurred  to 
him.  He  had  just  shown  his  physical  courage  at  Waterloo,  here 
was  a  display  of  moral  courage  in  the  face  of  serious  personal 
danger.  The  first  pamphlet  is  not  extant,  but  we  know  that 
copies  of  both  were  burned  at  the  Wartburg  festival  in  1817 — a 
fact  that  shows  with  what  feelings  his  act  was  looked  upon  by  a 
large  part  of  his  contemporaries  and  fellow-students. 

In  1818  Immermann  began  attending  the  courts  at  Oschersle- 
ben  and  Magdeburg  as  a  young  barrister  and  in  the  fall  of  1819 
he  settled  in  Miinster. 

At  the  same  time,  Heine,  after  his  failure  in  mercantile  life, 
entered  the  University  of  Bonn.  His  life  here  and  in  the  Univer- 
sities of  Berlin  and  Gottingen  consumed  the  next  five  years,  when 
in  1825  he  passed  his  legal  examination  and  nominally  changed 
his  religion.  Meanwhile,  in  December  1821,  while  he  was  in  Ber- 
lin, he  published  his  first  collection  of  poems,  and  the  following 
May  there  appeared  in  the  "  Rheinisch-Westfalischer  Anzeiger" 
a  review  of  them  by  Immermann.  This  was  the  first  impulse  to 
the  establishment  of  friendly  relations  between  the  two  poets. 


14 


II. 

Personal  and  Literary  Relations. 

At  this  time  Immermann  was  in  Miinster,  serving  as  auditeur 
for  the  Westphalian  army-corps,  which  was  stationed  at  that 
prosaic  little  town.  Like  Goethe,  who  longed  so  many  years  for 
peace;  Uhland,  whose  law  practice  and  political  career,  much  to 
Heine's  regret,  usurped  the  time  that  might  have  been  devoted  to 
poetry;  like  Heine  himself,  who  bitterly  complained  of  the  years 
wasted  over  his  law  studies;  and  Kke  many  another  of  our  German 
poets,  Immermann  was  doomed  for  the  sake  of  his  material  exist- 
ence to  a  career  wholly  foreign  to  his  taste  and  temperament. 
Unlike  some  others,  however,  he  performed  his  irksome  duties 
conscientiously,  gradually  winning  for  himself  advancement  in 
office  and  a  name  for  uprightness,  integrity,  and  justness.  But 
the  society  of  the  officers  and  soldiers  was  uncongenial  to  him, 
and  the  isolated  location  of  Miinster,  its  Catholicism  and  philistin- 
ism,  fostered  in  him  an  innate  tendency  to  solitude — a  tendency 
that  had  already  been  heightened  by  his  unfortunate  conflict  with 
the  "  Teutonia' '  and  by  an  unhappy  passion  for  Luise  von  Strasser, 
the  most  intimate  friend  of  his  sister  Lottchen.  She  became  his 
muse  and  was  the  Coles  tine  of  the  "  Papierfenster  eines  Eremiten,' ' 
his  first  novel. 

His  disappointments  and  Weltschmerz  made  his  heart  very 
receptive  to  the  friendly  advances  of  the  Countess  Elise  von 
Ahlefeldt,  the  beautiful  wife  of  the  famous  General  von  Liitzow, 
in  whose  home  he  was  a  most  welcome  guest.  Elise  must  have 
been  greatly  attracted  by  his  fresh  vigor,  his  wholesome  views, 
and  his  intelligence,  by  his  talent,  and  his  enthusiasm  for  the  great 
and  the  beautiful,  and  the  animation  with  which  he  endowed 
everything;  and  in  turn,  his  creations  all  show  her  enlivening  in- 
fluence on  the  development  of  his  rich  talent.  In  her  salon  the 
best  poetry  of  the  world's  literature  was  read  and  discussed,  and 
to  Immermann  soon  fell  the  r61e  of  reading  aloud  the  works  of 
Goethe,  Shakespeare,  and  Calderon,  besides  an  occasional  poem  of 
his  own,  which  was  sure  to  meet  with  the  approval  of  Frau  von  Liit- 
zow's  friends.  Had  it  not  been  for  this  stimulating  intercourse, 
the  four  years  of  humdrum  existence  in  Miinster  would  have  seemed 
to  Immermann  almost  unendurable.     The  leisure  hours  not  spent 

15 


in  the  intellectual  circle  gathered  about  Elise,  Immermann  devoted 
to  writing  and  the  study  of  Tieck,  Hoffmann,  Fouqu6,  Shakespeare, 
Goethe,  and  Schiller,  all  of  whom  were  to  have  a  marked  influence 
upon  his  own  productions. 

In  the  midst  of  his  struggle  with  content  and  form  and  his 
attempt  to  clothe  his  lofty  thoughts  aright,  there  now  appeared 
in  1822  a  volume  of  poems  of  a  new  order :  both  the  personal  con- 
tent and  the  form  of  Heine's  poems  drew  attention  to  them  from 
all  sides,  and  it  is  a  compliment  to  Immermann's  genius  that  he 
was  the  first  to  recognize  the  quality  of  his  work  and  to  herald  it 
with  a  dignified  and  appreciative  review,  thereby  giving  the  signal 
for  Heine's  fame  as  a  poet  and  setting  the  example  to  other  critics. 
We  can  imagine  with  what  joy  he  read  the  dream-pictures, 
romances,  love-songs,  sonnets,  the  miscellaneous  poems,  and 
the  translations  from  Lord  Byron  contained  in  this  collection, 
and  how  he  compared  in  his  mind  Heine's  poems  with  Byron's, 
finding,  however,  only  a  superficial  similarity;  for,  as  he  said, 
Heine's  possessed  a  vigor  and  buoyancy  that  Byron's  lacked.  That 
boldness  of  outline  in  the  "  Traumbilder' '  was  something  new,  as 
well  as  the  audacity,  the  almost  dramatic  vividness,  with  which 
Heine  set  forth  his  youthful  sorrows,  his  lack  of  harmony  with  the 
world,  his  half-humorous,  half-tragic  view  of  life.  Immermann 
had  likewise  suffered  through  his  unfortunate  love-affair,  and  his 
poems,  published  shortly  afterwards,  reveal  an  equal  richness  of 
content,  but  what  can  be  said  of  their  form?  labored,  unnatural, 
inorganic.  Here  he  found  objectivity  of  presentation,  a  popular 
tone,  spontaneity,  individuality,  a  surprising  originality  and  inde- 
pendence, an  abhorrence  of  weak  sentimentality,  all  of  which  must 
have  deeply  impressed  him,  realizing,  as  he  did,  his  own  com- 
plete dependence  on  models. 

But  if  his  poems  failed  to  awaken  any  response  in  the  hearts 
of  their  readers,  with  the  exception  of  the  dilettante  circle  of  Frau 
von  Liitzow,  the  soul  history  that  he  himself  had  to  tell  enabled 
him  to  read  Heine's  aright,  to  discover  the  prevailing  mood,  and, 
what  is  more,  the  source  of  it;  for  in  this  review  he  made  one  asser- 
tion that  particularly  attracted  Heine's  notice :  namely,  that  the 
joylessness  of  his  poems  was  due  not  entirely  to  the  sad  love-affair 
of  the  poet,  but  to  the  hostility  of  genius  toward  an  unfeeling  age. 
He  even  considered  it  a  burden  of  Fate  to  be  born  with  poetic 
talent  at  that  time,  because  of  the  unfitness  of  the  soil  to  nourish 
the  tender  plant  of  poetry.  Immermann  knew  what  it  meant  to 
experience  the  isolation  of  a  poet  and  to  do  without  all  recognition 
from  the  outside  world;  yet  the  less  recognition  he  found  without, 

16 


the  more  he  convinced  himself  of  his  worth  and  abiUty,  allowing 
himself  to  put  all  too  much  faith  in  the  judgment  of  his  tactful  but 
perhaps  not  overwise  friends,  whose  very  sympathy  and  goodwill 
may  have  hindered  his  progress  in  the  right  direction. 

That  he  was  thus  able  to  appreciate  the  sentiment  of  Heine's 
poems,  that  he  was  the  first  to  remark  tersely  the  bold  outline, 
the  remarkable  individuality  of  the  poet,  the  deep  discord  in  his 
soul,  the  difficulty  of  a  poet's  position  in  the  world,  and  much 
besides,  affected  the  author  deeply  and  excited  his  keenest  interest 
in  the  reviewer.  In  December  of  that  year,  1822,  he  therefore 
wrote  to  Immermann,  giving  expression  to  his  gratitude  for  the 
warm  words  and  assuring  him  of  his  highest  esteem  and  most  sin- 
cere love.  Thus  began  a  friendship  that  continued  through  Immer- 
mann's  lifetime,  a  friendship  which  had  to  be  maintained  by  cor- 
respondence, since  the  two  poets  met  personally  but  once,  and 
which  manifested  itself,  among  many  other  ways,  in  mutual 
suggestions  and  criticisms,  in  words  of  encouragement  and  help- 
fuhiess  in  all  matters  of  publication,  and  in  an  honest  admiration 
of  each  other's  aims  and  endeavors. 

More  significant  reviews  followed  Immermann's,  and  the 
young  poet  found  himself  received  into  a  large  and  influential 
literary  circle  of  Berlin,  the  circle  that  included  Varnhagen  von 
Ense  and  his  talented  wife  Rahel, — ^the  most  intellectual  woman, 
Heine  tells  Immermann,  that  he  has  ever  known.  In  her  salon  he 
became  a  welcome  guest,  as  well  as  in  that  of  the  charming  poetess, 
Elise  von  Hohenhausen,  who  had  translated  extensively  from  the 
English  and  had  been  the  first  to  remark  upon  the  similarity  of 
Byron  and  Heine.  From  Rahel,  Heine  learned  to  know  and  appre- 
ciate the  genius  of  Goethe — "that  constellation  which  Rahel's 
clear  vision  had  been  the  first  to  discern' ' ;  in  her  salon  he  became 
acquainted  with  Ludwig  and  Friederike  Robert,  with  Chamisso, 
Eduard  Hitzig,  Hehnine  von  Chezy,  Willibald  Alexis,  Michael 
Beer,  who  afterwards  became  Immermann's  most  intimate  friend, 
Schleiermacher,  Franz  Bopp — in  short,  with  all  cultured  Berlin. 
At  first  inclined  to  diffidence,  he  soon  gained  ease  and  assurance, 
and  found  in  this  company  the  stimulus,  the  friendly  recognition, 
and  the  mature  judgment  that  every  young  poet  needs. 

Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  his  elation  over  the  immediate  recog- 
nition of  his  poetic  ability  and  the  tributes  paid  to  his  genius  by 
critics  of  renown,  in  spite  of  the  social  dissipations  of  the  metropolis 
and  the  inspiring  academic  life  under  a  superior  staff  of  professors, 
the  poet  was  lonely  and  disheartened  and  Immermann's  ready 
sympathy  and  intelligent  appreciation  attracted  Heine  to  him.     It 

17 


is  touching  to  see  from  this  first  letter  with  what  zeal  he  made  him- 
self acquainted  with  all  of  Immermann's  work  up  to  that  time. 
First  there  were  his  poems  and  tragedies.  The  latter  had  followed 
close  upon  some  insignificant  youthful  comedies  in  three  successive 
years,  1819  to  1821,  and  were  finally  published  together  in  1822, 
effecting  the  author's  d^but  into  literary  life.  Goethe,  to  whom 
the  volume  was  dedicated,  shrank  back  from  all  relations  with 
Immermann,  confessing  that,  while  he  thought  well  of  him,  he 
was  himself  too  old  a  man  now  to  wait  for  talents  to  mature.  (To 
Staatsrat  Schulz,  May  18,  1822.)  Then  there  was  his  novel,  the 
"  Papierfenster,"  and  the  pamphlets  on  his  student  troubles  in 
Halle  and  these  concerning  Pustkuchen.  This  Pustkuchen — 
whose  name  Heine  considerately  explains  to  us  in  the  "Roman- 
tische  Schule"  means  omelette  soufflee  and  suits  his  character — 
was  an  Evangelical  pastor,  who  had  published  anonymously  a 
continuation  of  "Wilhelm  Meisters  Lehrjahre"  under  the  title 
of  "Wilhelm  Meisters  Wanderjahre"  (1821) — a  work  that  mysti- 
fied the  public  all  the  more  as  the  first  volume  of  Goethe's  own 
"  Wanderjahre"  appeared  at  the  same  time.  The  so-called 
''Falsche  Wanderjahre"  created  great  excitement  in  the  en- 
thusiastic circle  of  Goethe  adorers,  and  Immermann  was  not  long 
in  joining  forces  with  the  defenders  of  Goethe's  fame  through  the 
publication  of  two  pamphlets :  "  Ein  ganz  frisch  schon  Trauerspiel 
von  Pater  Brey,  dem  falschen  Propheten  in  der  zweiten  Potenz" 
and  "Der  Brief  an  einen  Freund  iiber  die  falschen  Wanderjahre 
Wilhelm  Meisters." 

Nor  did  Heine  lose  any  time  in  making  his  new  friend  known 
to  his  Berlin  acquaintances.  He  interested  them  to  enter  into 
discussions  of  Immermann's  "Tragodien"  in  the  journals;  we  have 
a  picture  of  him  surrounded  by  his  literary  friends,  telling  them, 
"half  mad  with  joy"  about  the  new  tragedies,  reproaching  Varn- 
hagen  for  his  merely  lukewarm  praise  of  them  in  the  "  Gesellschaf- 
ter' '  and  finally  presenting  a  copy  in  Immermann's  name  to  Frau 
von  Hohenhausen,  who,  through  her  articles  in  the  Leipzig  ''  Kon- 
versationsblatt"  and  other  periodicals,  helped  to  advertise  his 
fame.  We  can  see  him  persuading  his  friend  Kochy  to  write  some- 
thing better  for  the  first-named  journal  and  through  him  securing 
the  promise  of  Klingmann,  the  director  of  the  Braunschweig  stage, 
to  produce  there  the  "  Petrarca.' ' 

"  My  letter  would  become  too  long  if  I  wished  to  tell  you  in 
"detail  how  very  much  your  tragedies  have  pleased  here,  how 
"  much  they  have  been  praised,  criticized,  and  found  fault  with — 
"  by  poetasters.     The  latter  are  the  natural  enemies  of  good  poets, 

18 


"  and  this  vermin  will  not  fail  to  feed  on  your  beautiful  laurels. 
"Up  to  this  time  you  have  had  this  particularly  good  fortune, 
"that  in  obscure  Miinster  your  personality  has  been  concealed 
"from  most  people.  But  wherever  the  true  poet  is,  he  is  hated  and 
"maligned;  the  penny-poets  cannot  forgive  him  for  wishing  to  be 
"more  than  they,  and  the  highest  he  can  attain,  to  after  all,  is 
"only  martyrdom." 

Heine  reserves  the  discussion  of  Immermann's  lyrics  until 
later,  as  they  have  not  satisfied  him;  but  he  devotes  much  space 
to  the  tragedies  and  not  until  toward  the  end  of  the  letter 
does  he  mention  his  own  poems.  Then  he  expresses  his  gratitude 
for  the  review  in  the  following  sentences : 

"The  significant  words  in  the  'Anzeiger'  which  you  spoke 
"  concerning  my  poems  have  affected  me  deeply;  I  confess  you  are 
*'  the  only  one  so  far  who  has  divined  the  source  of  my  deep  sorrows. 
"I  hope,  however,  soon  to  be  known  perfectly  by  you;  perhaps  I 
"  have  succeeded  in  my  second  poetic  work  in  giving  up  the  pass- 
"key  to  my  soul's  lazaret.  I  shall  soon  give  this  book  to  the 
"  press,  and  it  will  be  one  of  my  greatest  joys  to  make  you  acquaint- 
"  ed  with  it.  Really  there  are  only  a  few  people  after  all  for  whom 
"  one  writes,  especially  if  one  has  withdrawn  more  into  one's  self, 
"as  I  have  done.  This  book  will  contain  my  little  malicious- 
"  sentimental  lyrics,  a  southern  Romance-drama  abounding  in 
"metaphorical  language,  and  a  very  short,  gloomy  northern 
'^tragedy." 

In  many  ways  Heine  expresses  his  admiration  of  the  man; 
he  thinks  that  Nature  must  have  given  him,  besides  the  gift  of 
poetry,  that  of  good  health,  else  he  could  not  accomplish  so  much; 
he  tells  him  also  that  Professor  Gubitz  had  long  before  desired  him 
to  ask  Immermann  for  contributions  to  the  "Gesellschafter,"  but 
he  advises  him  not  to  dissipate  his  energy  on  journal  articles. 
Finally  he  concludes  his  letter  with  the  well-known  words  which 
I  shall  comment  upon  later.  "I  found  the  other  day  a  little 
*  'student  publication :  'Ein  Wort  zu  seiner  Zeit  von  Immermann.' 
^'I  think  it  is  by  you,  and  I  was  glad  to  see  from  it  that  even  earlier 
'  'a,  strong  inclination  for  the  good  and  right  possessed  you.  War 
"  on  time-worn  injustice,  on  prevailing  folly  and  evil!  If  you  wish 
"me  as  a  confederate  ( Waff enb ruder)  in  this  holy  struggle,  I  joy- 
"  fully  extend  to  you  my  hand.  Poetry  is  in  the  end,  after  all, 
^'only  a  beautiful  side-issue." 

What  Immermann  replied  we  can  only  conjecture  from 
references  in  Heine's  letters,  as  Immermann's  were  destroyed  in 
the  Hamburg  fire  of  1833.     Heine  often  spoke  with  sorrow  of  the 

19 


loss  and  said  once  to  Adolph  Stahr :  "  That  was  a  correspondence 
"which  we  two  as  'Strebende'  put  much  into,  for  we  exerted  at 
''that  time  an  essential  influence  upon  each  other.  Strange  to 
"say,  our  relations  in  the  biographies  of  Immermann  have  been 
"almost  entirely  ignored."  In  all  we  have  fifteen  letters  of 
Heine  and  two  of  Immermann,  and  if  we  judge  from  Immermann's 
nature  and  his  correspondence  with  Michael  Beer,  we  can  think 
of  his  replies  as  dignified  and  stately  in  language,  having  a  certain 
note  of  distmction,  less  enthusiastic  but  no  less  sincere  in  tone  than 
those  of  his  impulsive,  whimsical  friend.  This  particular  letter 
we  know  that  Immermann  answered  a  week  later,  December  31, 
1822,  and  that  he  sought  advice  concerning  the  publication  of  his 
"Periander''  and  of  a  prospective  periodical,  the  "  Polyhymnia,' ' 
to  which  he  hoped  Heine  would  contribute.  The  latter  could 
promise  no  contributions,  however,  on  account  of  his  uncertain 
health,  and  though  mention  was  often  made  of  the  project  after- 
wards, it  was  at  last  abandoned. 

In  the  next  letter,  written  on  the  14th  of  January,  1823, 
Heine  again  shows  an  unselfish  desire  to  further  Immermann's 
interests.  He  offers  to  see  personally  the  Berlin  publishers  and 
advises  Immermann  to  consult  on  the  subject  of  publication  Varn- 
hagen  von  Ense,  to  whom  he  pays  a  high  tribute,  in  that  he  de- 
clares him  to  be  a  man  whose  standing,  character,  loyalty,  and 
critical  ability  merit  the  highest  confidence,  and  whose  co-opera- 
tion would  be  more  valuable  to  Immermann  than  anything  else 
he  might  be  able  to  effect  for  him.  Heine  was  very  eager  to  make 
Immermann  known  in  Germany  and  to  acquaint  him  also  with  his 
friends.  Between  him  and  Christian  Sethe,  one  of  his  very  ear- 
liest and  at  this  time  his  closest  friend,  he  tried  to  bring  about  a 
meeting,  as  Sethe  was  then  practicing  in  the  Miinster  Court.  To 
each  of  the  men  he  writes  appreciative  words  of  the  other  and 
promises  to  visit  them  both;  then,  failing  to  see  his  plan  carried 
out,  he  is  disturbed  and  fears  that  either  their  diversity  of  views 
concerning  university  life,  or  Immermann's  feeling  that  Sethe  holds 
first  place  in  Heine's  affections  may  be  keeping  them  apart. 

Moreover,  to  encourage  Immermann  not  to  hope  for  too  great 
a  fee  for  his  new  work,  he  tells  him  that  he  has  been  awarded  by 
Maurer  for  his  "  Tragodien  und  Lyrisches  Intermezzo' '  forty  copies 
of  the  volume — "  and  ten  of  those  have  not  yet  been  paid!" — and 
not  a  penny  more!  In  the  matter  of  publication,  Heine  found 
that  he  could  be  of  some  service  to  his  friend,  and  a  week  later  he 
reports  again  to  Immermann  that  he  has  been  able  to  interest  his 
own  particular  advisor.  Professor  Gubitz,  in  him,  and  that  Varn- 

20 


hagen  has  also  recommended  him  to  Brockhaus  of  Leipzig,  and 
pointed  out  the  advantages  to  be  gained  by  publishing  his  works. 

And  so  the  correspondence  progresses.  Heine  writes  that  he 
is  comforted,  strengthened,  and  inspired  by  it,  and  his  letters  show 
every  evidence  of  deep  interest  in  Immermann  and  sincere  affection. 
As  we  should  expect,  the  subjects  were  largely  of  a  literary  charac- 
ter. The  poets  were  accustomed  to  send  each  other  their  works 
as  soon  as  they  were  published,  to  criticize  them  freely,  and  to  dis- 
cuss their  plans  for  future  literary  work.  The  freedom  with  which 
Heine  gave  suggestions  and  advice  without  fear  of  offending  in- 
dicates an  equal  degree  of  frankness  on  the  part  of  Immermann, 
whose  letters  must  have  displayed  the  openness  and  sincerity 
characteristic  of  their  author. 

On  the  appearance  of  the  "Tragodien  und  Lyrisches  Inter- 
mezzo," Heine  forwarded  a  copy  to  Immermann  with  a  letter 
dated  April  10,  1823,  in  response  to  one  received  February  3.  In 
this,  the  longest  and  most  confidential  of  them  all,  Heine  expresses 
his  joy  at  having  some  one  to  act  as  his  father-confessor,  and  he 
assures  Immermann  that  he  is  one  of  very  few  who  will  be  able  to 
understand  the  confession  in  "Ratcliffe."  More  fully  than  to 
any  one  else,  he  confides  to  Immermann  his  pride  in  that  drama, 
as  well  as  his  fears  concerning  '^Almansor,"  which  has  already 
been  seized  upon  and,  much  to  Heine's  disgust,  branded  as  a 
Tendenzgedicht.  The  unfriendly  attitude  of  the  critics  and  the 
eagerness  with  which  they  made  this  accusation,  rather  than  the 
accusation  itself,  is  what  caused  the  author's  indignation,  for  in 
many  places  he  acknowledges  the  polemical  nature  of  the  work 
and  the  fact  that  it  was  intended  to  serve  the  interests  of  the  time. 
On  the  same  day  he  writes  Steinmann:  '^Do  you  know  Karl 
"Immermann?  We  must  both  take  off  our  hats  to  him,  and  you 
"  first.     He  is  a  forceful,  luminous  poet-personality.' ' 

From  now  on,  we  begin  to  hear  of  Heine's  plans  to  leave  Ger- 
many and  go  to  Paris,  where  he  will  study  for  a  time  and  work 
himself  into  the  diplomatic  service.  He  has  long  cherished  the 
hope,  and  quite  agrees  with  all  that  Immermann  writes  on  the  sub- 
ject. On  his  way  thither  in  the  fall,  he  will  stop  off  at  Miinster 
and  discuss  the  plans  further  with  his  friend.  It  is  apparent  that 
Immermann  was  also  meditating  such  a  step  and  Heine  advises 
him  to  write  at  some  favorable  time  an  article  that  will  attract 
the  attention  of  diplomats,  as  he  himself  intends  to  do;  he  has  great 
confidence  in  Immermann's  fitness  for  this  profession.  A  few 
months  later,  in  May,  Heine  was  so  ill  that  he  feared  the  frustra- 
tion of  his  plans  for  Miinster  and  Paris,  and  he  writes  his  friend 

21 


Of  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


from  Liineburg,  whither  his  family  had  moved  during  his  absence 
in  Berlin,  that  it  may  be  a  long  while  before  he  can  visit  the 
" Knipperdollingstadt"  and  shake  the  hand  of  the  poet  "with 
whom  he  hopes  to  grow  old":  he  has  been  deeply  moved  by 
Immermann's  spontaneous  use  of  a  similar  expression  in  one  of  his 
letters. 

In  the  next  sentence,  Heine  avows  that,  in  the  very  first  hour 
in  which  he  read  Immermann's  tragedies,  he  recognized  him  for 
what  he  was;  and  he  asserts  just  as  emphatically  that  he  is  equally 
sure  of  the  correctness  of  his  judgment  concerning  himself.  "  That 
"assurance  springs  not  from  dreamy  self-delusion,  but  rather  from  a 
"clear  consciousness,  an  exact  knowledge  of  the  poetic  and  its 
''natural  opposite,  the  common-place.  All  things  indeed  are  recog- 
"nizable  to  us  only  through  their  opposites:  there  would  be  no 
"poetry  for  us  at  all,  if  we  were  not  able  to  see  everywhere  the 
"  common  and  trivial  also;  we  ourselves  recognize  our  own  charac- 
"  ter  only  from  the  fact  that  the  strange  character  of  another  per- 
"son  is  perceptible  and  serves  us  as  comparison." 

In  the  letter  preceding  this  one,  Heine  had  asked,  at  Varn- 
hagen's  suggestion,  that  Immermann  review  his  tragedies  for  the 
"  Anzeiger,' '  if  he  could  do  so  without  its  being  too  great  a  burden. 
This  Immermann  has  consented  to  do,  and  now  Heine  assures  him 
that  he  may  write  the  harshest  criticisms  without  hesitation  or  fear 
of  giving  offence:  he  must  be  unprejudiced!  He  knows  that  the 
chief  fault  of  his  poems  lies  in  their  one-sidedness,  in  that  they  are 
all  variations  of  the  same  little  theme — a  shortcoming  that  will  be 
perfectly  apparent  to  Immermann,  whose  poetry  has  for  its 
theme  the  whole  great  world  with  its  infinite  multifariousness. 
"You  have  this  in  common  with  Shakespeare,"  he  writes,  "that 
"you  have  comprehended  within  yourself  the  whole  world,  and  if 
"your  poems  have  a  fault,  it  consists  in  the  fact  that  you  do  not 
"know  how  to  concentrate  your  vast  wealth;  "  '  Shakespeare  under- 
"stands  that  better  and  therefore  he  is  Shakespeare.'  ' '  In  thus 
distinguishing  the  vital  qualities  of  Immermann's  poetry,  Heine 
showed  remarkable  penetration. 

This  is  the  reason,  he  continues,  why  Immermann  is  so  pro- 
ductive. Overwhelmed  by  the  mass  of  impressions,  he  has  to 
take  refuge  in  reflections,  instead  of  creating  characters,  as  Shake- 
speare does;  and  this  is  why  the  penny-poets  and  critics  accuse 
him  of  imitating  now  Shakespeare,  now  Goethe.  He  really  has 
more  in  common  with  the  latter,  because  Shakespeare  could  ex- 
press his  view  of  life  artistically  in  only  one  form — the  dramatic — 
while  Goethe  employed  all  possible  forms — drama,  novel,  lyric, 

22 


and  epic.  For  himself,  Heine  confesses,  the  art  of  concentration 
is  easy,  because  he  has  only  a  tiny  bit  of  the  world — one  single 
theme  to  reproduce;  it  remains  to  be  seen  whether  he  will  be  as 
successful  in  a  prolonged  tragedy.  He  believes,  however,  that 
Immermann  will  master  the  art  and  that  each  drama  will  be  better 
than  the  preceding.  Meanwhile  he  realizes  how  much  in  his  own 
poems  will  not  stand  the  test  of  true  critics;  he  thinks  that  his  ill- 
health  may  be  reflected  in  his  poetry;  it  will  not  pain  him,  even, 
to  have  other  faults  indicated,  but  only  this  one  distresses  him  be- 
yond endurance :  when  people  try  to  interpret  a  poet's  utterances 
by  reference  to  his  views  of  life,  his  politics,  his  religion,  his  private 
hatreds,  and  his  prejudices.  There  is  so  often  no  agreement  at  all 
betvv^een  the  outer  and  the  true  inner  history,  and  in  his  case  never! 

By  this  time,  Goethe  had  also  recognized  Immermann's 
talent,  and  praised  his  originality,  trusting  that  his  taste  would 
purify  itself.  A  few  months  later,  in  June  1824,  he  said  to 
Kanzler  Miiller,  "I  am  letting  Immermann  alone,  for  I  cannot 
rightly  construe  him.  How  can  one  pass  judgment  on  something 
that  is  still  growing,  problematical?' ' 

In  September  1823,  Immermann  was  appointed  Kriminal- 
richter  in  Magdeburg  and  in  January  of  the  following  year  he  re- 
turned to  the  place  of  his  birth,  to  make  his  home  with  his  mother 
and  brother.  At  first  he  felt  himself  a  stranger  in  the  city  so  much 
changed  and  beautified  since  his  youth,  and  his  duties  were  most 
onerous;  but  he  gradually  made  for  himself  a  place  in  the  life  of 
the  city  and  distinguished  himself  in  his  office.  We  have  but  to 
consult  the  article  that  he  published  in  Hitzig's  "Zeitschrift  fiir 
Kriminalrechtspflege"  to  learn  how  interested  he  finally  became  in 
everything  connected  with  his  profession.  He  still  found  oppor- 
tunity to  indulge  his  literary  tastes,  and  throughout  the  year  he 
was  working  up  some  old  material  of  Gryphius  into  his  "  Cardenio 
und  Celinde,' '  a  work  that  did  not  receive  its  final  form  until  the 
winter  of  1824-1825;  projects  for  a  great  cycle  of  nine  Hohenstaufen 
tragedies  were  occupying  his  mind,  he  was  revising  Elise's  trans- 
lation of  "Ivanhoe"  and  planning  a  Magdalene  tragedy — an 
enormous  amount  of  energy  expended,  when  we  reflect  that  he 
had  only  his  leisure  hours  to  devote  to  literary  pursuits,  or,  as 
Platen  said  in  ridicule  of  Miillner:  "Morgens  zur  Kanzlei  mit 
Akten,  abends  auf  den  Helikon!' '  ("  Die  Verhangnisvolle  Gabel.' ') 
This  tremendous  force  and  intellectual  activity  is  what  greatly 
impressed  Heine  when  he  was  finally  able  to  visit  Immermann 
and  converse  with  him  face  to  face. 


23 


This  happened  the  first  of  April,  1824.  In  March,  Heine  had 
given  to  the  world  through  the  "  Gesellschafter"  thirty-three 
poems  belonging  to  the  cycle  "Heimkehr,"  and  now,  while  on  his 
way  from  Gottingen  to  Berlin  for  a  much  needed  change  and  rest, 
he  stopped  at  Magdeburg  and  spent  four  delightful  days  with  his 
friend.  The  only  record  of  this  visit  is  contained  in  a  letter  from 
Heine  to  Christiani,  written  the  following  month,  but  he  mentions 
it  to  Moses  Moser,  April  4,  1824 :  "  I  should  know  of  nothing  to 
tell  you  about  Magdeburg,  except  that  it  encloses  within  its  walls 
a  splendid  cathedral  and  at  the  present  moment  two  very  dis- 
tinguished poets.' '  On  his  return  trip,  he  intended  to  see  Immer- 
mann  again,  but  the  diligence  stopped  there  for  too  short  a  time. 

Probably  the  most  absorbing  topic  of  conversation  was  that 
of  their  literary  aims  and  ideals  and  the  mysteries  of  the  poetic 
art.  The  very  thought  of  all  that  Immermann  had  done  and  was 
then  contemplating  doing  overwhelmed  Heine,  and  he  felt  that 
his  own  activity  amounted  almost  to  nothing  in  comparison.  He 
enumerates  for  Christiani's  benefit  the  works  that  were  engaging 
Immermann's  attention:  we  know,  however,  that  the  program 
was  too  full  for  even  an  Immermann.  Only  one  of  the  Hohen- 
staufen  dramas  "Friedrich  II"  (1828)  appeared;  the  Magdalene 
tragedy  was  destined  never  to  see  the  light  of  day,  and  the  same 
fate  befell  the  review  of  Heine's  own  tragedies,  which  he  caught  a 
glimpse  of  among  some  other  critical  writings  of  Immermann's. 

Furthermore,  we  learn  from  the  letter  to  Christiani  that  the 
two  poets  talked  much  of  Goethe,  as  Heine  greatly  admired  the 
stand  that  Immermann  had  taken  toward  the  "  Falsche  Wander- 
jahre,"  and  the  Pustkuchen  pamphlets  find  frequent  mention  in 
his  correspondence  both  before  and  after  this  visit.  He  only 
regretted  that  his  health  prevented  his  taking  part  in  the  cam- 
paign against  such  presumption,  but  "sooner  or  later,"  he  says, 
(April  10,  1823)  "you  will  nevertheless  hear  my  voice,  and  in 
Paris,  where  now  there  is  beginning  to  appear  a  love  for  German 
literature,  especially  for  Goethe,  I  intend  to  do  my  part.' '  In  fact 
it  was  the  effectiveness  of  these  pamphlets  that  led  Heine  to  think 
there  were  great  opportunities  for  Immermann  as  a  political 
writer:  "The  knife  that  has  so  prettily  cut  up  a  Pustkuchen  can 
also  carve  a  diplomatic  hare."  No  doubt  Heine  discussed  most 
enthusiastically  the  details  of  his  Paris  plans,  as  he  tells  Christiani 
right  after  this  visit  that  he  "  lobbied' '  a  good  deal  in  Berlin;  but  it 
is  evident  that  with  Immermann  the  whole  idea  was  but  a  passing 
fancy,  which  grew  out  of  his  desire  to  give  Elise,  whom  he  hoped 
eventually  to  marry,  something  worthy  of  her  title.     The  step 

24 


would  have  proved  fatal,  however,  because  Immermann's  simple, 
abrupt,  and  uncompromising  nature,  his  uprightness,  and  his 
determination  to  bring  truth  to  light  regardless  of  consequences, 
would  have  hindered  success  in  this  field.  He  could  have  become 
a  champion  of  patriotic  ideas  for  his  beloved  fatherland,  but  never 
could  he  have  fought  the  complicated  battles  of  cabinet  politics. 

Altogether,  the  letter  to  Christiani  is  a  testimony  to  the  deep 
respect  and  admiration  that  Heine  felt  for  his  new  friend.  "  Im- 
mermann  pays  profound  homage  to  my  Muse,"  Heine  tells  him, 
and,  in  turn,  he  betrays  a  touching  humility  before  Immermann's 
genius  and  confesses  that  he  found  him  greater  than  he  had  antici- 
pated. He  is  impressed  with  the  feeling  that  Immermann  lacks 
youth,  but,  as  a  compensation,  he  stands  there  a  colossus  of 
strength  and  repose.  A  bit  of  characteristic  wit  escapes  Heine 
when  in  commenting  upon  Immermann's  outward  appearance, 
he  says,  "Ich  sehe  weit  besser  aus." 

Whether  we  agree  with  this  statement  or  not,  we  can  hardly 
imagine  a  greater  contrast  in  personal  appearance  than  existed 
between  the  two  men.  Immermann  was  of  medium  height, 
square-shouldered  and  broad-chested  and  compactly  built,  like 
the  ancient  Romans,  giving  an  impression  of  f orcefulness,  of  ster- 
ling qualities,  and  intrinsic  worth;  his  countenance  was  likewise 
decidedly  imposing:  massive  face,  high,  broad  forehead,  dark 
hair,  deep-set  gray  eyes  with  their  penetrating  glance,  and 
tightly  closed  lips  betraying  an  habitual  expression  of  deep  serious- 
ness, firm  determination,  dignity,  and  calmness.  Heine,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  small  and  slender,  narrow  chested,  yet- distinguished 
in  his  bearing  and  appearance;  his  face  was  pale,  with  a  high, 
beautifully  chiselled  forehead  shadowed  by  short,  light-brown 
hair;  his  small  blue  eyes  were  thoughtful  and  dreamy,  and  are 
said  to  have  looked  near-sighted  and  fatigued;  his  nose  was  almost 
Grecian,  but  a  slight  curve  in  the  middle,  together  with  rather 
high  cheek-bones,  gave  the  least  suggestion  of  his  Jewish  descent. 
In  him  one  instinctively  recognized  the  poet,  in  Immermann  the 
practical  man  of  business — independent,  imperious  even — ^with 
other  absorbing  interests  besides  his  literary  profession. 

After  this  visit,  the  letters  between  the  two  friends  became 
less  and  less  frequent,  but  Heine  never  ceased  to  speak  of  Immer- 
mann with  affection,  to  enter  into  his  plans,  and  to  consider  him 
a  great  force  as  man  and  dramatist.  In  1830  he  brought  about  a 
meeting  between  his  beloved  sister  Charlotte  and  Immermann,  as 
she  passed  through  Dlisseldorf  on  her  way  to  Ems,  assuring  him  at 


25 


that  time  by  letter  that  any  favor  he  might  show  to  her  would  be 
more  deeply  felt  than  if  it  were  shown  him. 

At  the  very  time  when  Pleine  was  pouring  forth  his  admiration 
of  the  "Koloss  von  Kraft  und  Ruhe/'  Immermann  was  writing 
most  impassioned  letters  to  the  Countess  Elise,  who  had  removed 
to  Dresden,  pending  the  separation  from  General  Liitzow,  be- 
seeching her  to  take  pity  on  his  hermit-like  existence  and  come  to 
Magdeburg.  The  material  for  his  "Cardenio  und  Celinde"  was 
also  being  turned  to  account  and  the  work  was  assuming  the  form 
of  a  biographical  confession;  the  words  of  Celinde  can  awaken 
interest  and  understanding  only  as  the  utterance  of  the  Countess, 
yet  Immermann  had  apparently  betrayed  nothing  of  his  emotions 
to  Heine.  Not  until  a  year  later  (April  22,  1825)  was  the  divorce 
finally  granted  and  EHse  enabled  to  join  her  lover.  That  autumn 
they  journeyed  through  the  Harz  Mountains  together  and  then 
settled  down  in  his  mother's  home;  in  the  winter  "Cardenio  und 
Celinde"  was  finished  and  the  poet  gained  some  relief  through 
verbal  expression.  Touching,  indeed,  is  the  attempt  of  Immer- 
mann, in  the  character  of  his  hero,  to  induce  Elise — ^the  Celinde — 
to  marry  him;  her  refusal  brought  despair  to  the  poet,  who  through 
the  early  training  under  the  severe  discipUne  of  his  father  and 
through  the  convictions  of  his  maturer  years,  had  been  led  to  base 
the  welfare  of  the  whole  nation  on  a  healthy  family  life.  It  is  no 
wonder  that  the  consciousness  of  his  guilt  overpowered  him.  He 
longed  for  nothing  so  much  as  to  find  peace  in  a  wholesome,  natural 
marriage  relation,  and  this  wish,  which  seemed  a  very  modest  one 
to  him,  could  not  be  fulfilled. 

Once  more  in  Gottingen,  Heme  seems  to  have  taken  his  law 
studies  a  little  more  seriously,  though  at  the  same  time  he  was 
laboring  strenuously  on  material  for  his  novel,  '^Der  Rabbi  von 
Bacharach. "  In  September  he  relieved  the  monotony  by  his 
tour  in  the  Upper  and  Lower  Harz  and  Thuringia,  made  his  much- 
famed  call  on  Goethe  in  Weimar,  and  by  the  end  of  November 
had  already  put  the  result  of  his  experiences  on  paper.  His  con- 
tract with  Campe  detained  him  for  a  long  while  in  Hamburg, 
but  having  finally  seen  the  first  volume  of  the"  Reisebilder' ' 
through  the  press,  he  went  home  to  Liineburg,  whence  he  sent 
Immermann  a  copy  and  on  October  14,  1826,  a  letter  describing 
his  dissapointment  at  finding  nothing  to  do  in  Hamburg — nothing 
there  but  enmity,  slander,  and  vexation.  In  his  extreme  bitter- 
ness over  his  lot,  he  has  determined  to  leave  Germany  forever: 
his  strength  will  not  permit  him  to  remain  and  encounter  the 
hostility  any  longer.     But  first  he  will  see  the  second  volume  of 

26 


his  "  Reisebilder' '  in  print,  and  to  this  he  begs  Immermann  to  con- 
tribute, saying  that  he  is  reserving  the  best  place  for  him  and  adding 
that  the  "Reisebilder"  are  at  present  the  place  where  he  is  to 
bring  before  the  public  whatever  he  wishes  and  that  the  first 
volume  has  found  such  an  enormous  sale  that  it  will  soon  go  through 
a  second  edition. 

Meanwhile,  on  April  29,  1826,  Immermann  writes  to  Varn- 
hagen :  "  There  appeared  recently  in  the  ^Gesellschafter'  a  Harz- 
"reise  by  Heine,  which  I  liked  very  much.  It  has  a  sweet,  fan- 
'  'tastic  charm,  which  would  have  been  still  greater,  if  Heine  had 
"  known  how  to  guard  himself  against  certain  rough-shod  ex- 
"  pressions.' '  Nevertheless,  it  was  welcomed  by  a  most  intelligent 
critique  from  Immermann's  pen,  written  for  the  "  Jahrbiicher  fiir 
wissenschaftliche  Kritik"  in  1827.  Writing  entirely  from  the 
standpoint  of  artistic  appreciation,  he  emphasizes  the  purely 
lyric  quality  of  all  Heine's  writings,  the  poetic  descriptions  in  the 
"Harzreise"  no  less  than  the  "Buch  der  Lieder,"  and  admirably 
sets  forth  that  unconscious  wisdom  of  a  poet,  which  leads  him  to 
restrict  himself  to  a  small  field ;  for  the  narrower  the  field  the  more 
intense  the  poetic  feeling,  and  the  more  intense  the  feeling,  the 
nearer  the  possibility  of  success.  Hence  it  is  even  to  Heine's 
advantage  that  he  recur  again  and  again  to  an  apparently  ex- 
hausted subject,  for  only  by  the  way  in  which  a  lyrist  understands 
how  to  modulate  and  vary  his  theme  is  the  poet  recognized.  For 
this  faculty  one  must  truly  admire  Heine.  Immermann  praises 
likewise  the  inner  unity  of  his  poems,  the  harmony  of  tones  and 
colors,  the  irresistible  directness  and  freshness  and  vigor  of  lan- 
guage, the  brevity,  which  results  sometimes  in  a  too  epigrammatic 
ending,  and  the  wit.  But  he  does  not  praise  blindly;  there  are 
times  when  the  form  is  not  poetic  and  that  happens  whenever  the 
poet  is  not  calm  enough  to  compose.  He  must  never  allow  him- 
self to  be  controlled  by  his  material  or  carried  away  by  passion; 
but  the  particular  event  with  all  its  joys  and  sorrows  must  be  held 
together  by  the  free  action  of  the  imagination.  This  is  what  dis- 
tinguishes a  poem  from  a  dull  cry  of  pain  or  the  shout  of  anger  or 
derision,  so  that  the  latter  within  finite  bounds  becomes  a  symbol 
of  the  universal  and  infinite.  It  is  noteworthy  that  Immermann 
fails  entirely  to  grasp  the  significance  of  Heine  as  a  German  humor- 
ist and  the  value  of  the  "  Reisebilder' '  for  the  culture  of  the  time. 

In  June  1826,  while  Heine  was  still  in  Hamburg,  Immermann 
journeyed  to  Berlin  for  the  last  of  his  higher  state  examinations, 
and  there  he  was  received  into  Rahel's  circle  and  learned  to  know 
Heine's  friends.     Having   creditably  passed  the  examination,  he 

27 


was  shortly  afterwards  appointed  councillor  of  the  provincial 
court  in  Diisseldorf;  but  before  he  left  Magdeburg,  he  completed 
his  "  Trauerspiel  in  Tirol,' '  which  was  revised  as  "  Andreas  Hofer,' ' 
and  worked  out  his  esthetic  treatise  "Ueber  den  rasendenAjax 
des  Sophokles' ' — so  important  for  his  own  development.  Of  this 
study,  Heine  wrote  and  had  printed  a  review,  but  it  has  not  been 
found.  Twenty-five  years  later,  in  a  conversation  with  Adolf 
Stahr,  he  says :  "  As  Immermann  wrote  me,  I  was  the  only  one  to 
*  *  call  attention  to  the  significance  of  this  excellent  work,  while  the 
"classical  scholars  and  the  antiquarian  professionals  scornfully 
"passed  it  by.' '  As  for  the  former  work,  Goethe,  in  a  few  benevolent 
words  to  Holty,  expressed  his  pleasure  that  Immermann  had 
"found  himself,"  for  he  recognized  the  talent  and  the  forceful 
individuality  behind  the  work. 

This  tragedy  was  the  first  germination  of  the  seeds  sown  in 
his  four  years  of  activity  in  Miinster,  while  he  was  unconsciously 
observing  the  sturdy  Westphalian  peasant  class,  little  thinking  that 
the  fruit  was  to  be  his  richest  creations — the  portrayal  of  living 
people  and  contemporary  history,  which  we  find  in  "  Andreas 
Hofer,"  the  "Epigonen,"  the  satire  of  "  Miinchhausen"  and  the 
Heimatskunst  of  the  "Oberhof."  Heine's  praise  in  the  third 
volume  of  the  "  Reisebilder' '  is  among  the  finest  tributes  paid  to  a 
German  poet : 

"There  is  an  eagle  in  the  German  fatherland,  whose  song  of 
"life  and  light  resounds  so  powerfully  that  it  is  also  heard  down 
"  here,  and  even  the  nightingales  cease,  in  spite  of  all  their  sorrows 
"demanding  melodious  expression.  That  eagle  is  you,  Karl 
"  Immermann,  and  often  indeed  did  I  think  of  you  while  in  that 
"land  of  which  you  have  so  beautifully  sung.  How  could  I 
"  travel  through  the  Tirol  without  thinking  of  the  Trauerspiel'  ?' ' 

At  the  "  Golden  Eagle' '  in  Innsbruch,  where  Andreas  Hofer 
had  lodged  and  where  every  corner  was  alive  v\^ith  memories  of 
him,  Heine's  admiration  increased  for  the  poet  that  could  create, 
as  did  Schiller,  out  of  the  very  wealth  of  his  imagination,  something 
so  like  the  reality,  which  he  had  never  seen.  He  was  delighted 
with  the  fact  that  the  work  was  forbidden  in  the  Tirol,  and  blushed 
with  pride  when,  upon  being  shown  the  landlord's  old,  worn  copy 
of  the  "  Trauerspiel' '  he  could  say  that  the  author,  Karl  Immer- 
mann, was  his  friend. 

In  the  spring  of  1827,  Immermann  took  up  his  new  duties  in 
Diisseldorf,  the  birthplace  of  his  friend  Heine  and  at  this  time  a 
beautiful  city  of  thirty  thousand  inhabitants.  Here  he  became 
acquainted  with  new  types  of  men,  enjoyed  greater  leisure,  and 

28 


was  troubled  only  by  bis  relations  to  Elise,  who  had  accompanied 
him — ^relations  that  were  looked  upon  askance  by  his  new  acquaint- 
ances, so  that  he  was  reluctant  to  mingle  with  them.  His  gift  of 
reading  aloud,  however,  made  him  soon  a  guest  much  sought  by  the 
families  of  Diisseldorf  and  it  was  not  long  before  he  became  one  of 
that  coterie  of  young  men  who  were  pursuing  the  same  ideals  and 
whom  he  found  congenial  and  helpful  in  his  Diisseldorf  activity: 
the  artist  Wilhelm  Schadow;  the  earnest  poet  Uechtritz,  with 
whom  he  had  corresponded  since  1823  and  who  became  a  colleague 
of  Immermann's  in  1829;  Karl  Schnaase,  who  came  in  1830  as 
Schadow's  successor  in  office;  the  musician  Mendelssohn,  and 
Michael  Beer,  his  intimate  friend  and  confidant.  This  is  the 
period  which  Immermann  has  so  delightfully  characterized  in  his 
"  Diisseldorf er  Anfange' '  and  in  which  he  proved  his  ability  as  a 
dramaturgist.  From  1835  to  1838  his  endeavors  were  exerted  to 
maintain  a  model  stage  with  essentially  literary  aims.  He  was 
even  granted  a  year's  leave  of  absence  from  his  official  duties  to 
conduct  the  new  enterprise,  but  after  three  years  the  experiment 
was  for  financial  reasons  pronounced  impracticable.  Nevertheless, 
inspired  by  Goethe's  example,  Immermann  realized  in  Diisseldorf 
what  Tieck  had  attempted  in  Dresden;  he  produced  the  master- 
pieces of  dramatic  literature  as  they  had  never  been  performed  on 
the  stage  before,  and  through  his  earnestness  and  his  imposing 
personality,  he  was  able  to  inspire  and  educate  a  troupe  of  fresh 
young  talents  to  most  creditable  performances. 

Immediately  after  Immermann's  arrival  in  Diisseldorf,  the 
second  volume  of  the  "  Reisebilder"  appeared,  to  which  he  had 
contributed  those  few  satirical  verses  against  the  imitators  of  the 
"  West-Ostlicher  Divan,' '  making  merry  over  what  he  considered 
their  mere  metrical  ingenuity  and  ridiculing  their  unnatural, 
oriental  diction.  The  best  is  the  one  about  their  eating  too  much 
of  the  stolen  fruit  from  the  Garden  of  Shiraz  and  then  vomiting 
up  ghazals.  Without  his  work  on  the  "  Ajax' '  Immermann  would 
scarcely  have  written  them;  but  now,  having  established  for  him- 
self a  firm  standpoint,  he  could  look  back  upon  his  own  youthful 
imitations  as  a  great  mistake,  believing  no  longer  that  a  conscien- 
tious modeling  of  one's  work  after  that  of  the  greatest  masters 
must  lead  to  perfection.  Imitation  robs  poetry  of  its  historical  basis 
and  is  impossible  in  true  art,  and  German  art,  to  be  perfected, 
must  be  traced  back  to  its  beginnings  and  continued  in  a  straight 
line  from  the  earliest  attempts.  He  could  never  again  imitate 
or  tolerate  imitation  in  others,  and  hence  his  conviction  that 
Platen's  oriental  metres  were  mere  dalliance  with  forms  that 

29 


could  mean  nothing  to  the  German  mind,  and  that  such  practice 
was  a  serious  hindrance  to  the  development  of  an  independent 
German  art. 

The  first  intimation  that  his  epigrams  had  hit  the  mark  came 
to  Immermann  in  1828,  when  Platen's  "  Romantischer  Odipus" 
unexpectedly  appeared;  for  unlike  Riickert  and  others,  who  must 
have  felt  themselves  equally  included  in  the  satire.  Platen  could 
neither  forgive  nor  forget  the  offence.  The  attack  was  directed 
against  the  more  general  aspects  of  Romanticism,  especially  its 
formlessness  and  its  love  of  experimenting  with  new  and  uncouth 
metres,  but  Immermann  {"  Nimmermann' ')  was  made  the  target 
of  the  author's  wit,  while  Heine,  as  a  punishment  for  publishing 
the  epigrams,  was  assailed  in  the  most  msulting  fashion  as  a  "Pin- 
dar of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin"  and  as  the  ''Petrarch  of  the  Feast 
of  the  Tabernacles."  Immermann  was  deeply  hurt;  his  sense  of 
justice  was  outraged,  especially  as  he  had  great  respect  for  Platen, 
recognizing  in  him  a  seriousness  of  artistic  endeavor  akin  to  his 
own.  Twelve  years  later  he  reviews  the  situation  in  the  "  Diissel- 
dorfer  Anfange"  with  much  regret  and  in  "  Miinchhausen"  he 
declares  that  Platen  will  come  into  Walhalla  and  belongs  there,  in 
spite  of  all  his  follies  and  blunders.  He  confesses  also  that 
he  never  read  the  "  Odipus,' '  but  had  the  contents  told  him  by  his 
friends,  so  that  he  might  learn  the  order  of  battle  without  destroy- 
ing his  humor  for  the  skirmish.  The  story  of  the  feud  is  long  and 
ugly  and  would  not  need  to  be  mentioned  here  except  for  the  fact 
that  it  coupled  the  names  of  Heine  and  Immermann  more  closely 
than  ever.  Heine,  too,  had  just  shown  sufficient  interest  in 
Platen  to  speak  a  good  word  for  him  to  the  Minister  Eduard  von 
Schenk,  on  whose  favor  the  royal  pension  of  600  gulden,  much 
desired  by  Platen,  depended,  and  had  gained  for  him  also  the  good- 
will of  Madame  Gotta.  He  had  read,  too.  Platen's  comedies  and 
enjoyed  them,  finding  them  in  form  and  style  closely  related  to 
Immermann's,  except  that  wit  was  lacking  and  the  poetry,  while 
genuine,  did  not  flow  so  richly.  (Letter  to  Immermann,  February 
24,  1825.)  That  the  attack  was  without  provocation  and  that 
Platen  knew  almost  nothing  of  the  two  poets  at  the  time  when  he 
wrote  his  "  Odipus' '  has  been  proved  by  Heine's  letters  to  Gotta, 
Varnhagen  von  Ense,  and  Immermann  and  by  Platen's  diary  and 
letters.  Gotta  even  offered  to  refuse  the  publication  of  the  work, 
but  Heine  declined  the  favor,  having  already  in  mind  his  plan  of 
campaign,  as  soon  as  the  book  should  leave  the  press.  November 
17,  1829,  he  writes  Immermann  that  in  the  forenoon  of  the  day 
preceding  he  had  chastized  Platen  and  in  the  evening  applauded 

30 


Immermann  at  a  very  successful  performance  of  "  Andreas  Hofer' ' 
"  YoU;  Immermann,  have  played  the  judge.  I  will  play,  or  rather, 
seriously  personate,  the  executioner."  He  thereupon  playfully 
chides  Immermann  for  involving  him  in  trouble  and  in  revenge, 
dedicates  to  him  the  third  volume  of  his  "  Reisebilder."  He  had 
thought  of  something  more  worthy,  but  deems  it  fitting  now  to 
present  Immermann  with  the  book  in  which  the  spolia  opima  of 
the  great  champion  of  Classicism  are  contained.  The  "Bader 
von  Lucca"  he  intends  only  as  a  fragment  of  a  greater  romance 
of  travel,  which  he  hopes  to  send  Immermann  in  the  fall,  so  as  to 
dedicate  to  him  something  superior;  when  it  is  finished,  the  Count 
will  be  banished  from  the  work;  unfortunately  it  was  never  com- 
pleted and  the  Count  stays  in.  He  writes  further  that  he  composed 
it  under  unfavorable  circumstances,  though  not  before  months  of 
deliberation:  he  is  sure  that  it  will  annihilate  his  adversary,  in 
spite  of  the  moderation  he  has  shown:  had  he  told  all  that  he 
could  tell  of  his  enemy,  no  one  would  believe  him — he  has  had  to 
conceal  the  whole  truth  in  order  to  be  believed. 

It  is  interesting  to  see  with  what  persistency  both  Platen  and 
Heine  claim  to  have  aimed  not  so  much  at  individuals  as  at  whole 
classes.  Platen  assures  Fugger  that  his  "Odipus"  was  no  work 
of  personal  revenge;  he  wished  to  hit  all  the  poor  insignificant 
poets  of  the  time — "  die  ganze,  toUe  Dichterlingsgenossenschaft' ' 
of  which  he  made  Immermann  the  representative,  and  only  inci- 
dentally did  he  cast  a  slur  at  Heine;  while  Heine  asserts  that  he 
desired  to  chastize  through  Platen  the  aristocrats,  priests,  and 
enemies  of  the  Jews  in  general.  In  both  cases,  however,  the  person- 
al insults  outweigh  the  impersonal.  Later  Heine  assures  Immer- 
mann that  when  he  first  heard  in  Munich  of  the  intended  lampoon, 
he  told  Schenck  (and  possibly  Michael  Beer  also)  that  he  would 
punish  Platen  for  it,  even  if  he  himself  should  be  spared,  implying 
that  he  would  do  for  his  friend  what  he  had  never  done  for  himself. 
In  spite  of  his  realization  afterwards  that  he  had  injured  himself 
with  the  best  part  of  the  reading  world,  he  was  satisfied  in  one 
respect :  "  Thank  God,  people  are  no  longer  saying,  Toor  Heine, 
poor  Immermann!'     The  commiseration  was  unendurable.' ' 

Immermann's  retaliation  was  of  quite  a  different  order.  It 
was  entitled  "Der  im  Irrgarten  der  Metrik  umhertaumelnde 
Kavalier,  eine  litterarische  Tragodie,"  and  consisted  of  a  prose 
preface  and  twenty-two  poems  in  sonnet  form,  in  which  all  per- 
sonalities are  avoided  and  only  the  esthetic  principles  attacked. 
He  declares  polemic  unfit  for  poetry,  because  of  its  negative 
quality;  only  the  positive  is  the  element  of  art.     He  severely 

31 


blames  Platen  for  cultivating  the  antique  style  and  refined  forms, 
which  serve  only  to  cover  up  a  lack  of  real  feeling,  and  as  he  wrote 
after  his  indignation  at  Platen's  inexcusable  behavior  had  worn  off, 
the  tone  is  mild  and  decent.  His  defence  would  have  had  more 
effect  had  not  Heine's  reply  taken  the  attention  of  the  reading 
world.  Indicative  of  Immermann's  attitude  toward  the  whole 
are  some  words  written  to  Marianne,  April  24,  1839.  "Of  man- 
^'kind  in  general  I  have  a  very  good  opinion.  It  is  a  theory  of  mine 
"that  no  one  injures  another  purposely,  but  that  where  this 
"happens,  awkwardness  or  narrow-mindedness  is  to  blame. 
"Therefore  I  am  very  soon  reconciled  in  my  thoughts  to  such  as 
"  have  done  me  any  evil  turn;  in  my  meditation  I  soon  understand 
"such  things  in  their  natural  connection  and  at  this  moment  I 
"  could  not  name  any  one  to  whom  I  bear  any  resentment.' ' 

Heine,  however,  felt  wounded  in  his  most  vulnerable  spot 
and  was  filled  with  personal  hatred  and  deep  bitterness.  His 
venomous  reply  was  therefore  meant  to  bring  death  to  his  enemy 
and  to  revenge  the  insult  to  his  race  and  the  infringement  of 
human  rights,  as  well  as  to  reveal  the  national  servility  of  the 
Germans.  In  its  startling  and  absolute  conclusiveness,  it  attained 
its  goal,  while  Immermann's  "  Kavalier,' '  in  its  more  modest  and 
becoming  garb,  failed. 

In  the  day  of  theatrical  scandals  and  literary  contentions,  crit- 
icisms of  Heine  were  freely  made,  most  of  them  sharp  and  unjust. 
They  caused  him  so  much  annoyance,  that  he  asked  support  from 
his  friends,  who,  however,  for  the  most  part  remained  silent  on 
the  subject.  But  Varnhagen  published  in  the  "Blatter  fiir  lit- 
terarische  Unterhaltung"  an  article  that  was  mild  and  just. 
Michael  Beer's  attitude  toward  the  work  was  stern  and  unyielding. 
April  2,  1830,  Immermann  writes  Beer  from  Diisseldorf:  "I 
"have  sent  Heine's  'Reisebilder'  and  wish  to  hear  your  opinion. 
"He  has  lately  approached  me  again  and  written  me  several 
"  letters  in  his  childlike,  confiding,  droll  manner.  Your  good  will 
''seems  to  mean  a  great  deal  to  him;  he  mentioned  you  in  almost 
"  every  letter.  In  the  last  one,  he  wrote  me  that  I  should  ask  you 
"to  look  after  his  interests  with  Herr  von  Schenk  in  the  Platen 
''affair,  which  I  hereby  do.  His  rejoinder  is  idealiter,  to  be  sure, 
"  hard  to  parallel,  yet,  as  a  truly  productive  nature,  he  deserves 
"  all  possible  support.  And,  in  the  second  place,  it  is  to  be  taken 
"  into  consideration  that  Platen  first  treated  him  personally  in 
"the  meanest  way."  To  this  request  Beer  replies  (April  11,  1830) : 
"I  don't  know  what  he  (Schenk)  thinks  of  Heine's  book.  In 
"correspondence  or  oral  conversation  I  will  be  glad  later  to  act 

32 


"as  his  advocate  in  so  far  as  my  honesty  permits.  If  Heine  asks 
"you  again  whether  you  have  received  an  answer  from  me,  tell  him 
"  he  is  to  recall  how  often  he  has  said  to  me  that  I  handle  most 
"things  with  kid  gloves.  Tell  him  I  put  on  those  gloves  when  I 
"  read  his  book  and  am  still  the  same  weakling  as  of  old,  who  can 
"not  digest  such  coarse  fare  as  his  satire:  in  a  word,  that  it 
"made  me  somewhat  ill;  that  I  send  him  my  heartiest  greetings, 
"  however,  and  that  my  personal  affection  for  him  is  still  the  same. 
"I  beg  of  you,  write  him  that.' ' 

A  month  later  (May  3,  1830)  Immermann  mentions  the  sub- 
ject again  in  reference  to  the  suggestions  that  he  had  just  received 
from  Heine  for  the  improvement  of  his  epic.  "This  proof  of 
"  interest  naturally  pleased  me  very  much,  and  therefore,  as  you 
"perceive,  I  must  stand  by  him  out  of  very  gratitude."  What 
Immermann  did  to  support  Heine,  whether  he  ever  spoke  openly 
for  him,  is  not  to  be  discovered,  but  it  is  quite  probable  that,  in 
spite  of  his  disapproval,  he  tried  to  excuse  Heine's  conduct  in  the 
affair.  Moses  Moser,  on  the  other  hand,  showed  such  disgust  that 
Heine  broke  with  him  after  years  of  friendship.  In  one  of  the  two 
extant  letters  from  Immermann  to  Heine  (February  1,  1830),  he 
thanks  Heine  heartily  for  dedicating  the  work  to  him  and  appre- 
ciates its  excellence,  but  thinks  that  Platen  might  have  been 
treated  less  harshly.  For  a  long  while  the  affair  continued  to 
annoy  Heine,  although  he  appeared  to  make  light  of  the  matter 
and,  as  Immermann  says,  his  letters  were  full  of  droll  utterances 
over  the  feud;  but  in  1847  he  expressed  himself  with  much  consid- 
eration for  Platen  and  regretted  his  attack  on  a  man  whose  powers 
he  had  underestimated. 

On  February  3,  1830,  in  a  letter  to  Immermann,  he  drops 
the  disagreeable  subject  to  talk  of  "Tulifantchen,"  and  with  much 
tact  and  delicacy  he  confesses  that  he  has  had  the  poem  lying 
on  the  table  before  him  for  ten  days,  having  taken  the  liberty  of 
bringing  home  the  manuscript  from  Campe's  office.  Four  years 
earlier  Heine  had  recommended  Immermann  to  his  Hamburg 
publisher,  expressing  in  a  letter  to  Merckel  his  joy  at  being  able 
to  show  his  interest  in  Immermann  and  do  Campe  a  good  turn  at 
the  same  time.  Now,  having  read  the  manuscript  and  having 
certain  improvements  to  suggest,  he  writes  frankly,  telling  Immer- 
mann that  the  suggestions  he  would  make  concern  a  few  tedious 
passages,  which  can  be  shortened,  and  certain  metrical  defects, 
which  consist  mainly  in  the  coincidence  of  the  end  of  a  word  and 
that  of  a  metrical  foot — a  condition  unendurable  in  trochaic 
tetrameter,  but  often  remedied  by  the  change  of  a  single  particle. 

33 


He  asks :  "  Will  you  go  through  the  poem  again  with  this  in  mind, 
or  shall  I  make  the  changes,  and  send  them  to  you  for  approval 
or  rejection?"  It  is  significant  for  the  confidence  imposed  in 
Heine's  judgment  by  Immermann  that  he  adopted  nearly  all  the 
suggestions,  acknowledging  them  as  uncommonly  fine  and  sound. 
In  his  letter  accompanying  these  suggestions,  Heine  writes: 
"The  poem  is  excellent,  full  of  real  humor,  containing  definite, 
"surprisingly  definite  forms,  and,  as  I  believe  now,  all  good 
"  enough  metrically.  At  least,  besides  the  metrical  faults  it  con- 
"  tains  also  metrical  excellencies  which  have  proceeded  from  the 
"soul,  the  primitive  seat  of  metrics  *  *  *  *  You,  dear 
"  Immermann,  sin  often  enough  against  the  outer  rules  of  metrics, 
"which  can  be  learned  by  rote,  if  need  be;  but  seldom  against 
"the  inner  metrics,  whose  norm  is  the  heart-beat.  Especially  is 
"this  shown  in  your  caesuras;  these — ^the  hidden  respiration  of 
"the  Muse,  the  shorter  or  longer  continuance  of  which  only  the  poet 
"knows  who  has  dreamed  in  her  arms — ^that  is  your  metrical 
"force." 

"  Tulifantchen"  remains  the  monument  of  the  combined 
genius  of  the  two  poets.  If  one  wishes  a  most  enlightening  com- 
parison of  their  ideas  of  metre  and  an  insight  into  Heine's  more 
delicate  sense  of  metre  and  rhythm,  one  should  consult  Elster's 
edition  of  Heine's  poems.  Vol.  7,  pp.  262-277,  where  all  the  sug- 
gestions for  metrical  improvement  are  recorded,  and  also  Richard 
M.  Meyer's  essay  on  Tulifantchen  in  the  "  Gedachtnisschrift." 
Heine  was  so  charmed  with  Immermann's  whole  conception  of 
the  epic  that  it  may  have  determined  the  form  of  his  "  Atta  Troll' ' 
(1842).  His  Barentoter  is  certainly  suggestive  of  Immermann's 
"Fliegentoter."  In  its  delicious  satire,  which  hits  almost  every 
shortcoming  and  weakness  of  the  age  with  never  any  bitterness, 
its  innccent  humor,  good-natured  irony,  and  irresistibly  funny 
parodies;  in  the  lyrical  charm  of  its  verses,  due  in  so  large  a  meas- 
ure to  Heine's  help,  and,  most  important  of  all,  perhaps,  in  the 
tone  of  the  whole  poem,  which  is  that  of  one  who  is  playing  with 
his  thoughts  and  loves  the  game — ^this  delightful  little  mock  epic 
shows  Immermann  at  his  best. 

Through  Campe's  delinquency,  the  publication  of  the  epic 
was  much  delayed:  Heine  writes  in  August  1830  that  he  is  still 
looking  forward  to  its  appearance  and  mentions  in  the  same  letter 
the  entertainment  that  the  "  Kolnischer  Karneval,' '  one  of  Immer- 
mann's two  novels  published  in  1829,  has  afforded  him;  he  is 
astonished  at  Immermann's  mastery  of  the  prose  and  the  epic 
forms. 

34 


The  answer  to  this  letter,  written  October  6, 1830,  is  the  second 
of  the  extant  letters  of  Immermann.  He  is  glad  that  Heine  is 
planning  something  epic,  as  it  seems  to  him  the  only  style  of  poetry 
for  the  times.  The  monstrous  contrasts,  which  every  one  has 
experienced,  have  called  forth  that  calmly  contemplative  mood, 
which  is  epic.  He  himself  has  much  material  of  that  sort  in  his 
head,  but  will  do  nothing  with  it  for  the  present,  as  he  intends  to  be 
busy  with  his  novels  this  winter.  He  has  felt  himself  again  in  the 
grasp  of  the  "  theatrical  demon' '  and  has  written  a  dramatic  poem 
"Alexis"  in  two  parts,  representing  the  struggle  of  Peter  the 
Great  with  the  Old  Russian  party  and  the  fate  of  the  son  entangled 
in  its  intrigues.  Though  he  is  sure  that  he  has  worked  it  up  in  a 
characteristic  and  dramatic  way,  yet  he  does  not  base  the  slightest 
hope  of  its  theatrical  success  on  this  circumstance,  as  an  intelligi- 
ble interpretation  would  require  more  reflection  and  imagination 
than  could  be  demanded  of  the  poor  stage-artisans.  The  letter 
ends  with  expressions  of  sincerest  gratitude  for  the  help  on  the 
text  of  "  Tulifantchen"  and  the  author  begs  that  Heine  order  of 
the  publishers  as  many  copies  as  he  wishes. 

After  Heine  went  to  Paris,  May  1731,  there  ensued  a  silence 
of  nearly  two  years,  broken  finally  by  a  letter  from  Heine,  Decem- 
ber 19,  1832.  He  wishes  Immermann  to  co-operate  with  him  in  a 
vast  enterprise:  namely,  the  "Europa  litteraire,"  for  which 
he  desires  an  article  from  Immermann's  pen  on  the  more  recent 
German  painting.  This  he  believes  Immermann  will  gladly 
furnish,  because  of  his  relations  with  Schadow  and  the  Diisseldorf 
Art  School.  He  explains  that  the  journal  is  devoted  entirely  to 
science  and  the  fine  arts  and  that  he  himself  is  writing  a  series 
of  articles  for  it  on  contemporary  literature  (his  "Romantische 
Schule").  He  hopes  soon  to  make  Immermann  known  to  the 
French  and  to  shed  such  light  from  France  upon  his  laurels  that 
his  enemies  shall  weep. 

Immermann  furnished  the  desired  contribution  and,  in  turn, 
reference  was  made  in  Heine's  essays  to  Immermann's  early  battle 
against  Pustkuchen,  in  which  "our  greatest  German  dramatist" 
won  his  spurs.  He  mentions  Immermann  also  in  the  "Salon," 
where  he  writes  that  he  has  seen  recently  only  two  theatrical 
works — ^two  tragedies  of  Immerman's — "  Merlin' '  and  "  Peter  der 
Grosse,"  neither  of  which  could  possibly  be  represented  on  the 
stage,  the  former  on  account  of  its  poetry,  the  latter  because  of 
its  politics.  Still  again  he  says:  "The  value  of  great  tragedies 
''like  those  of  Goethe,  Schiller,  Kleist,  Immermann,  Grabbe, 
"  Oehlenschlager,  Uhland,   Grillparzer,   Werner,   and  such  great 

35 


"  poets,  consists  more  in  the  poetry  than  in  plot  and  passion.  But 
"  however  charming  the  poetry,  its  effect  is  felt  more  by  the  soli- 
"tary  reader  than  by  a  large  company." 

From  this  time  on  we  have  no  records  to  show  whether  Heine 
read  the  remaining  works  of  Immermann,  upon  which  his  fame 
with  us  really  rests;  but  in  view  of  the  sincerity  of  his  affection 
for  Immermann  and  the  interest  that  he  still  manifested  in  his 
writings  even  in  Paris,  it  is  safe  to  assume  that  he  made  himself 
acquainted  with  them  all,  sooner  or  later.  We  learn  from  Laube 
(Samtliche  Werke,  Vol.  50;  p.  151)  that  Immermann  sent  him  in 
1839  his  Miinchhausen,  with  the  request  that  he  share  the  work 
with  Heine  and  give  him  besides  the  best  regards  of  the  author. 
And  before  this,  when  Laube,  on  his  way  to  Paris,  stopped  to  visit 
Immermann  in  Diisseldorf  the  latter  again  remembered  to  send 
Heine  his  warmest  greetings. 

In  1840  Heine  learned  quite  by  chance  of  Immermann^s 
death  and  from  the  depth  of  his  grief  he  writes  to  Laube  (end  of 
August)  that  he  wept  all  night  over  the  event.  His  letter  shows 
how  deeply  moved  he  was  and  how  sincere  had  been  his  friend- 
ship. "You  know  what  Immermann  meant  to  me,  this  old 
"  brother-in-arms,  with  whom  I  made  my  appearance  in  literature 
"  at  the  same  time,  arm  in  arm,  as  it  were!  What  a  great  poet  we 
"Germans  have  lost,  without  ever  having  really  known  him! 
"We,  I  mean  Germany,  the  old  unnatural  mother!  And  he  was 
"  not  merely  a  great  poet,  but  also  a  man  of  bravery  and  honor, 
"and  for  that  I  loved  him.  I  am  quite  prostrated  with  grief. 
"  About  twelve  days  ago  I  was  standing  one  evening  on  a  lonely 
"  cliff  by  the  sea,  watching  the  most  beautiful  sunset  and  I  thought 
"  of  Immermann.     Strange ! ' ' 

The  attempt  to  establish  any  marked  literary  influence  of 
Immermann  on  Heine  or  Heine  on  Immermann  could  only  result 
in  a  very  artificial  structure,  in  spite  of  the  many  instances  of 
similarity  in  both  thought  and  mode  of  expression.  The  criteria 
for  determining  influence  and  appropriation  of  material  have  been 
furnished  us  by  Richard  M.  Meyer*  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  the 
student  of  literature  more  cautious  in  his  statements  and  less 
inclined  to  jump  at  conclusions  than  formerly.  Let  me  quote  a 
few  examples  from  the  works  of  these  two  poets  which  might 
tempt  one  to  infer  a  stronger  literary  influence  than  the  facts 
warrant. 

*  "Kriterien  der  Aneignung".  Neue  Jahrbiicher  fiir  das  Klassische  Alter- 
tum  und  fur  Padagogic.     1906,  p.  376. 

"Der  Sprung  aus  dem  Fenster".     Zeitschrift  fiir  deutsches  Altertum 
und  deutsche  Literatur.     Berlin,  1909. 

36 


1.  Tannhauser :    "  Ich  schmachte  nach  Bitternissen.' ' 

Merlin:    "Ich  schmachte  nach  Finsternissen/ ' 

2.  In  reference  to  the  royal  throne — 

Memorabilien :  "ein  Ding  von  Holz,  mit  Sammet  iiber- 
zogen."  Heine  VII:  444:  "einen  Stuhl,  der  bedeckt 
mit  rotem  Sammet." 

3.  Miinchhausen :     "Wehe  iiber  dich,  Sand-Jerusalem''  (Berlin) 

Neue  Gedichte :   "  Verlass  Berlin,  mit  seinem  dicken  Sande." 

4.  Heine:     "Franzosische  Zustande." 

Miinchhausen :     "  Knippelsdorfer  Zustande.' ' 
Memorabilien:     ''Diisseldorfer  Zustande." 

5.  Salon :     "  Das  deutsche  Volk  gleicht  einem  Zopf  von  dreissig 

Millionen  zusammengeflochtenen  Haaren." 

Memorabilien:     "Dreissig  Millionen  Menschen  fiirchten!" 

6.  Memorabilien :     "  die  retrograde  Bewegung.' ' 

Romantische  Schule:  "retrograde  Richtung"  of  Fouqu^. 
Vermischte  Schriften:  "Paris,  der  Werkstatte  aller 
progressiven,  aber  auch  aller  retrograden  Verbriiderungen.' ' 

And  I  so  could  continue  the  list  indefinitely,  for  such  similar- 
ities are  striking.  Both  poets  talk  of  the  Liineburger  Heide  as 
symbolic  of  the  arid  and  barren;  they  have  frequent  references  to 
"  Zerrissenheit" :  Immermann  speaks  of  "unsere  kranken, 
zerrissenen,  romantischen  Gefiihle"  and  Heine  of  "ein  zerrissener 
Mensch"  and  "der  zerrissene,  curopamiide  Sohn";  they  choose 
Holland  as  the  scene  of  activity  of  one  of  their  heroes;  they  delight 
in  ridiculing  the  terminology  of  Hegel;  they  make  merry  over 
Weber's  "Freischiitz";  they  satirize  in  similar  terms  the  Fouqu6 
type  of  iron  knights;  they  deplore  the  movement  that  is  making 
*' machines  like  men  and  men  like  machines";  they  speak  in  the 
same  high  praise  of  George  Sand  and  in  like  derogatory  terms  of 
Victor  Hugo,  etc.,  etc.  We  must  remember,  however,  that  the 
ideas  concerning  industrialism,  for  instance,  were  common  to 
everybody,  and  even  the  very  phraseology  which  was  employed 
in-  the  discussion  of  certain  issues  struck  the  popular  fancy  so 
favorably  that  the  whole  generation  used  the  same  expressions. 
Thus  "thirty  million"  plays  a  role  in  the  contemporary  literature; 
Beer  uses  the  term  and  Borne  remarks  that  29,999,999  did  not 
invent  gunpowder.  Objection  was  made  to  Heine's  use  of  the 
expression  "  Franzosische  Zustande,"  but  Goethe  also  speaks  of 
the  "  Gottingen  Zustande." 

Nor  can  we  say  that  Heine's  prose  style  influenced  to  any 
great  extent  Immermann's  later  works.   Both  poets  saw  the  same 

37 


weaknesses  in  their  fellow-men  and  took  delight  in  satirizing  them; 
but  how  different  was  Immermann^s  kindly  humor  from  Heine's 
biting  wit  and  merciless  sarcasm!  There  was  nothing  in  Immer- 
mann's  nature  that  could  respond  to  Heine's  piquant,  vivacious, 
scintillating,  narrative  style.  His  prose  remains  hard  and  often 
clumsy  and  lacks  the  purely  artistic  qualities,  yet  the  autobi- 
ography betrays  a  lighter  touch  and  in  the  section  "  Lehre  und 
Literatur"  we  are  tempted  to  think  of  Heine's  "Romantische 
Schule"  while  the  "  Reisebilder"  in  general  may  have  affected 
the  style  of  Immermann's  journals  of  travel.  At  any  rate,  the 
titles  suggest  these  distinguished  predecessors :  "  Ahr  und  Lahn' ' 
(1833),  "Blick  ins  Tirol"  (1833),  and  "Frankische  Reise"  (1837). 
The  language  is  certainly  more  picturesque,  but  even  in  the  first 
named,  which  is  the  best,  wit  and  grace  are  lacking,  the  tone 
falls  into  the  pedantic,  and  the  poet  talks  pedagogic  ally  of  the 
human  and  historical  elements  of  life,  which  alone  seem  to  fasci- 
nate him.  There  is  no  nature  sense :  "  Nature,' '  he  says,  "  makes 
still  little  impression  on  me;  I  have  had  enough  of  visionary 
absorption  in  the  dead  stuff.' '  He  regarded  everything  in  a  cold, 
objective  way;  the  Rhine  bored  him,  the  outside  world  was  dead. 

If,  however,  we  look  at  Immermann's  last  poetic  composition 
his  "  Friihlings-Kapriccio"  of  1833 — ^we  shall  see  without  doubt 
the  direct  influence  of  Heine's  "  Buch  der  Lieder' '  and  the  "  Nord- 
seebilder."  The  poet  imitates  the  four  verse  stanzas  of  the 
"Lyrisches  Intermezzo,"  which  became  the  favorite  metre  of 
Heine's  successors;  and,  like  Heine,  he  gives  to  the  separate  poems 
no  titles.  The  free  rhythm  of  the  "Nordsee,"  which  the  genius 
of  Heine  succeeded  in  making  indicative  of  the  restlessness  and 
the  varying  moods  of  the  ocean,  he  also  copies  and  the  "  Schwa- 
nengesang' '  in  his  collection  "  Welt  und  Zeit'  'is  a  striking  example; 
but  in  his  case  the  effect  is  that  of  unnaturalness  and  lack  of  har- 
mony between  form  and  content.  He  was  not  great  enough  to 
attempt  with  success  the  metrical  license  that  Heine  allowed  him- 
self, and  as  he  lacked  the  fine,  sure  feeling  for  the  language  that 
Heine  possessed,  his  taste  is  often  questionable.  We  cannot  say 
that  the  few  antiquated  words  and  the  expressions  in  the  popular 
tone  used  by  him  point  to  Heine's  influence;  they  were  rather  in 
the  air  and  eagerly  adopted  by  all  who  loved  and  studied  the  folk- 
poetry.  But  there  is  a  conscious  attempt  to  imitate  Heine's 
wit  and  coquetry  and  to  employ  in  his  manner  sudden  contrasts 
and  surprising  turns.  At  best,  however,  they  are  awkward: 
grace,  delicacy,  and  spontaneity  are  wanting.  In  general  I  may 
say  that  we  do  not  find  in  Immermann's  poetry  the  features  most 

38 


characteristic  of  Heine's.  There  is  no  rich  personification  of  Na- 
ture, without  which  we  cannot  imagine  Heine.  There  does  not 
exist  for  Immermann  that  close  bond  of  understanding  and  sym- 
pathy between  man  and  the  plant-and-animal-worlds.  Nor  do 
we  find  Heine's  boldness  of  spirit,  his  scornful  superiority  to  all 
traditional  conventions,  his  disregard  of  formal  rules,  his  striking 
antitheses,  his  Romantic  irony.  The  few  instances  in  which  he 
tried  to  follow  Heine's  style  in  these  respects  are  not  very  success- 
ful. On  the  whole  Immermann's  poetry  could  well  be  spared,  in 
spite  of  many  rich  thoughts;  the  influence  of  Heine's  lyrical  style 
seen  no  less  on  the  works  of  all  the  young  poets  of  that  generation 
and  the  next,  is  too  slight  to  have  raised  the  level  very  much. 

It  is  his  prose  which  deserves  to  live  forever,  and  in  this  field 
he  was  practically  independent,  for,  in  the  first  place,  he  is  the 
author  of  the  most  charming,  most  fascinating  idyl  in  modern 
German  literature;  there  is  nothing  comparable  to  it  except 
Gottfried  Keller's  "Romeo  und  Julia  auf  dem  Dorfe."  It  is  to 
that  true  Dorfgeschichte,  the  "Oberhof,"  that  Immermann  owes 
his  fame  today.  The  genuineness  of  a  native  art,  which  so  faith- 
fully reproduced  the  character  of  the  Westphalian  land  and  people, 
a  people  that  had  kept  its  race  pure  for  over  a  thousand  years  and 
still  ruled  itself  according  to  tradition  and  custom;  the  remarkable 
portrayal  of  the  Hofschulz;  the  elevation  of  a  simple  love-story, 
that  of  blond  Lisbeth  and  her  Oswald,  from  the  monotony  of  a 
pastoral  idyl  to  the  eulogy  of  a  strong  passion  and  enduring  love — 
all  this  will  make  the  author  live  forever  for  the  German  folk.  The 
beauty  of  this  perfect  gem  would  have  suffered,  had  it  not  been 
possible  to  detach  it  from  its  setting;  for  it  is,  in  fact,  only  part  of 
a  larger  work,  perhaps  the  most  important  Zeitroman  in  German 
literature,  which  Immermann  himself  called  a  story  in  arabesques 
and  which  is  seen  to  be  a  confused  mass  of  contemporary  history, 
satire,  and  autobiographical  elements  gathered  about  the  hero 
Miinchhausen.  As  the  work  easily  falls  into  two  parts,  a  separate 
publication  of  the  "  Oberhof ' '  was  inevitable.  The  result  is,  that 
its  readers  do  not  realize  that  they  have  before  them  only  half 
of  a  single  composition;  but  for  a  perfect  understanding  of  the 
author,  his  world,  and  his  life,  it  is  necessary  to  read  both  halves 
as  he  wrote  them  and  observe  their  subtle  connections  and  mutual 
dependence.  It  has  been  said  that  the  work  is  unenjoyable 
as  a  whole,  because  of  the  confused  technique  of  the  Miinch- 
hausen chapters  and  the  lack  of  commentary  for  an  understanding 
of  the  satire,  which  would  require  an  extensive  knowledge  of  all 
the  contemporary  history  and  literature.     The  list  of  those  whom 

39 


Immermann  lashes  with  his  satire  is  indeed  inexhaustible;  the 
aristocracy  especially,  but  the  lower  classes  besides;  the  fashion- 
able writers  of  the  day,  of  the  Raupach  and  Plickler-Muskau  type; 
Goethe,  the  Romanticists,  the  Young  Germans,  Menzel,  Gutzkow, 
Kerner,  Gorres,  Scott,  Rothschild,  von  der  Hagen;  all  the  perver- 
sities of  the  day,  the  newspaper  culture,  the  political  instability, 
speculative  philosophy;  the  whole  range  of  isms;  mysticism,  Teu- 
tonism,  provincialism,  and  philistinism,  feudalism,  with  its  medie- 
val sentimentality,  and  industrialism.  On  everything  affected 
and  unnatural  in  the  literature  and  life  of  his  time,  Immermann 
turned  the  lime  light  of  his  satire,  and  in  this  fact  lies  the  fatal 
mistake  of  the  work,  that  he  condescended  to  satirize  insignificant 
events  and  persons,  with  the  result  that,  like  Aristophanes,  Rabe- 
lais, and  Swift,  he  has  hundreds  of  references  to  contemporary 
matters  which  can  no  longer  be  appreciated.  But  if  not  appre- 
ciated, the  work  can  be  enjoyed,  and  the  excellent  edition  of 
Harry  Maync  furnishes  with  its  concise  footnotes  and  its  general 
introductory  remarks  the  key  to  much  that  has  formerly  remained 
obscure. 

The  "Epigonen"  (1836)  has  been  called  Immermann's 
"Wilhelm  Meister,"  as  the  "Merlin"  is  compared  with  "Faust," 
and  the  "  Memorabilien"  with  "Dichtung  und  Wahrheit." 
Through  the  "  Epigonen' '  the  poet  won  for  himself  a  place  of  high 
rank  in  the  national  literature  of  Germany.  In  its  outlines  and 
certain  characters  it  strongly  reminds  one  of  Goethe  and  may 
be  called  the  last  of  the  Meisteriaden.  Like  "  Wilhelm  Meister' ' 
it  has  an  ethical  background, — ^the  struggle  between  the  new 
industrial  classes  and  the  old  aristocracy, — and  the  problems  it 
discusses  bring  it  into  touch  with  the  social  philosophy  of  Goethe's 
later  years.  The  novel  represents  the  people  of  the  "transition 
period' '  between  1820  and  1830  as  sad  Epigones,  clinging  to  their 
old  traditions  and  customs  and  finding  no  place  where  they  really 
fit  in, — ^the  late-born  of  an  age  then  rapidly  passing  away.  And 
not  only  the  individual  characters,  but  the  various  social  classes 
and  even  the  literary  life  are  all  represented  as  decadent.  The 
poet  sees  with  dread  the  approaching  conflict  between  agriculture 
and  industrialism;  with  good-natured  satire  he  again  points  out 
the  many  weaknesses  and  prejudices  of  the  age,  and  with  great 
sympathy  he  realizes  the  full  tragedy  of  that  problematic  time — 
that  time  of  vain  seeking  and  longing,  of  changing  values  of  life, 
of  disappointment  and  resignation. 

The  "  Memorabilien' '  shows  clearly  the  influence  of  Goethe's 
autobiography,  which  Immermann  greatly  admired,  and  as  his 

40 


youth  actually  had  much  in  common  with  Goethe's,  the  poet 
delighted  in  following  out  the  similarities.  The  serious  tone,  the 
depth  of  insight  into  the  currents  of  thought,  the  alternation 
of  autobiography  and  contemporary  history  in  its  relation  to  his 
life — ^this  method  of  treatment  can  not  but  recall  Goethe's  style, 
to  the  disadvantage  of  Immermann's,  however,  as  the  latter  did 
not  possess  the  power  to  keep  his  work  from  falling  apart  into 
separate  essays.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  poet  did  not  com- 
plete the  story  of  his  life  and  give  us  a  picture  of  his  experiences 
in  the  campaign  of  1816  and  of  his  activity  as  a  dramaturgist  in 
Diisseldorf ;  for  that  which  he  did  write  and  publish  belongs  to  the 
very  best  of  our  biographical  literature. 


41 


III. 

PSYCHOLOGICAL   EXPLANATION    OF   THE    RELATION- 
SHIP. 

In  the  preceding  pages  I  have  reviewed  at  some  length  the 
biographical  relations  of  the  two  poets  in  order  to  show  clearly 
that  there  did  exist  a  warm  friendship  between  them  for  many- 
years.  It  remains  now  to  account  for  the  nature  of  this  attach- 
ment and  the  reasons  for  it.  If  we  believe  with  Goethe  that  sharp 
contrast  of  character  is  the  best  foundation  of  friendship,  then  this 
intimate  union  will  not  surprise  us;  for  here  were  two  poets  of 
essentially  different  character,  starting  out  in  life  with  different 
traditions,  growing  up  amid  most  dissimilar  political,  social  and 
religious  influences,  yet  meeting  on  friendly  terms  at  once  and 
forming  an  attachment  that  was  not  a  mere  matter  of  sentiment 
but  of  moral  conviction.  That  their  talents  supplemented  each 
other  is  true,  as  Elster  says,  and  the  mutual  stimulation  of  oppo- 
site natures  is  not  to  be  lightly  regarded;  but  I  shall  try  to  prove 
that  there  existed  positive  grounds  of  congeniality,  and  that  where 
these  were  lacking  in  reality,  they  were  still  present  in  the  mind 
of  the  poet  Heine  with  sufficient  force  to  attach  him  affectionately 
to  Immermann  until  death  separated  them. 

Were  Heine's  nature  less  complex,  had  his  friendships  been, 
as  a  rule,  unmarked  and  unmarred  by  vicissitudes,  we  should  not 
feel  the  especial  interest  in  this  relationship.  But  Heine,  like 
most  men  of  extremely  artistic  temperament,  was  nervous,  high- 
strung,  and  over-sensitive;  he  easily  took  offense  and  easily  gave 
it  in  spite  of  his  real  kindliness  of  spirit.  As  he  himself  confesses 
(letter  to  Lehmann  June  26,1823),  owing  to  his  character  or  rather 
his  poor  health,  in  moments  of  ill-humor,  he  did  not  spare  his  best 
friends,  but  found  fault  with  them  and  treated  them  in  the  most 
outrageous  fashion.  But  in  all  his  letters  to  Immermann  there  is 
no  trace  of  annoyance  or  irritability,  no  reflection  of  his  ill-health — 
though  he  constantly  speaks  of  the  torture  he  is  enduring  from 
headache  and  of  his  efforts  to  improve  his  condition  by  sea- 
bathing and  rest  from  his  literary  labors — nothing  but  the  sincerest 
regard  for  the  man  and  poet.  Probably  Immermann  was  the  only 
friend,  not  excepting  his  nearest  and  dearest,  who  never  felt  the 

42 


bite  of  his  wit  or  the  sting  of  his  satire.  Maximilian,  in  his  "  Eriii- 
nerungen' '  of  his  brother,  relates  an  incident  to  show  that  Heine, 
out  of  his  regard  for  Immermann  withstood  the  temptation  of  an 
almost  irresistible  witticism,  which,  had  it  found  a  place  in  his 
writings,  would  have  made  the  touching  close  of  the  "  Trauerspiel 
in  Tirol' ^  ridiculous.  This  last  scene  represented  Andreas  Hofer 
incapable  of  believing  the  report  that  Tyrol  and  its  brave  defenders 
were  sacrificed  by  Austria,  until  he  was  shown  the  decree  of  the 
Emperor,  whereupon,  completely  crushed,  he  cried  out:  "Des 
Kaisers  Siegel."  Now  it  was  universally  known  that  Emperor 
Franz  of  Austria  had  a  passion  for  spending  his  leisure  hours 
making  sealing-wax  of  all  colors.  Said  Heine  to  his  brother: 
"Max,  what  a  commotion  Andreas  Hofer  or  some  one  in  the 
audience  would  cause,  if  at  the  end  he  should  call  out  in  despair, 
"Des  Kaisers  Siegellack!"  but  for  heaven's  sake,  do  not  repeat 
this.  I  love  Immermann,  and  treat  him  with  far  more  considera- 
tion than — ^my  brother.' ' 

Contrast  now  the  situation  here  with  that  in  the  case  of  Heine*s 
other  friendships,  both  earlier  and  later.  Heine  showed  himself 
always  a  judge  of  men  and  we  can  find  almost  no  instance  in  which 
he  misplaced  his  confidence.  Real  worth  he  was  ever  able  to 
recognize  and  he  possessed  a  keen  critical  insight  into  human 
nature,  which  enabled  him  to  count  among  his  friends  an  unusually 
large  number  of  men  and  women  of  the  soundest  and  noblest 
qualities.  And  yet  there  was  hardly  a  friendship  that  was  not  at 
some  time  threatened  with  dissolution,  if  not  actually  dissolved. 
At  present  we  feel  that  no  German  poet,  with  the  exception  of 
Goethe,  has  more  friends  among  foreign  nations  than  Heine. 
The  French  regard  him  as  their  own;  the  English  translate  him 
and  seek  to  understand  him;  the  Italians  have  long  appreciated  his 
talent  and  in  1875  produced  his  "Ratcliffe"  on  the  Milan  stage; 
while  in  Germany  his  friends  are  steadily  increasing  in  number,  as 
is  evinced  by  the  new  editions  of  his  works  and  the  many  disserta- 
tions and  journal  publications  appearing  constantly.  Neverthe- 
less, his  new  friends  have  to  suffer  for  the  same  reasons  that  his 
contemporaries  suffered,  although  with  our  deeper  knowledge  of 
his  peculiar  temperament  and  our  broader  view  of  his  whole  life, 
we  can  understand  him  better  and  forgive  more.  The  bad,  the 
common,  the  undignified  in  both  his  behavior  and  his  works,  his 
many  faults  and,  chief  among  them,  the  fact  that  he  desecrated 
his  beautiful  talent  by  ridiculing  the  highest  and  holiest — all  this 
we  look  at  more  charitably  now  when  we  recall  what  a  nervous 
sufferer  he  was  his  life  long  and  understand  all  the  conditions  under 

43 


which  he  lived.  Even  as  early  as  1822  he  begins  to  complain  of 
the  torturing  headaches  which  were  the  precursers  of  his  later 
nervous  affliction,  and  he  speaks  repeatedly  with  admiration  of 
Immermann's  robust  health,  which  helps  him  to  overlook  the 
miserable  jealousies  of  the  countless  assailants,  to  whose  attacks 
he  himself  is  so  sensitive.  He  cannot  laugh  at  the  censure  of 
critics  and  ignore  abuse,  as  he  is  sure  that  Immermann  with  his 
fine  health  can  do.  We  recall  the  words  with  which  Goethe 
excused  Herder's  bitterness,  sarcasm  and  contradictory  moods: 

" ^we  are  apt  not  sufficiently  to  consider  the  moral  effect 

"  of  a  morbid  bodily  condition  and  hence  we  judge  many  characters 
"very  unfairly,  because  we  consider  all  men  healthy  and  require 
of  them  that  they  conduct  themselves  accordingly."  In  Heine's 
moods  and  peculiarly  complex  nature  there  is  enough  charm  to 
fascinate  us  and  make  the  study  of  those  whom  he  chose  to  call  his 
friends  an  interesting  and  profitable  one.  Let  us  review  the 
progress  and  fate  of  a  few  of  these  friendships,  as  an  approach  to 
the  consideration  of  Heine's  relations  to  Immermann. 

One  of  his  very  earliest,  dating  from  his  lyceum  days,  was  that 
with  Christian  Sethe,  whom  he  so  earnestly  recommended  to 
Immermann  in  his  first  letters.  Sethe  was  a  year  older  than  Heine, 
a  child  of  practical  nature,  quiet,  calm,  orderly,  and  dutiful — quite 
Heine's  opposite,  and  he  seems  to  have  protected  his  friend 
against  the  taunts  of  the  older  school  boys.  After  their  gymna- 
sium days  together,  they  were  separated  for  some  years  and  then 
met  at  Bonn  in  1819,  where  Sethe  had  gone  to  complete  his  law 
studies.  He  had  grown  up  so  thoughtful  in  speech,  so  grave, 
dignified  and  reserved  in  manner,  with  such  an  intelligent  and 
judicious  way  of  viewing  things,  that  Heine  gave  him  the  nick- 
name "  Councilor' '  and  to  him  he  dedicated  the  "  Fresko-Sonette' ' 
as  a  memorial  of  those  days  in  Bonn.  In  fact,  twenty-four  poems 
in  Heine's  handwriting  were  found  among  Sethe's  papers,  showing 
the  intimacy  of  their  relations  and  the  care  with  which  Sethe 
preserved  whatever  poetic  productions  of  his  friend  came  to  his 
hand.  Yet  Heine's  relations  to  his  friends  depended  greatly 
upon  his  mood.  April  14,  1822,  he  writes  to  Sethe  that  after  the 
15th  they  can  no  longer  be  friends  and  that  he  absolves  Sethe 
from  all  obligations — not  because  he  is  angry  with  him,  but 
because  Sethe  is  a  German  and  in  his  present  mood  everything 
German  is  repulsive  to  him.  Not  long  afterwards,  he  went  back 
to  his  friend  again,  without  mentioning  the  contents  of  the  letter, 
and  he.  speaks  of  him  (letter  to  Friedrich  Steinmann,  April  10, 
1823)  as  " honest  Christian,  whose  mere  word  on  the  Day.  of 

44 


Judgment  will  have  more  weight  with  the  Lord  of  Mercy  than  the 
oaths  of  hundreds  of  thousands."  A  few  sentences  from  a  letter 
to  Sethe  dated  August  1825,  show  still  further  Heine's  uncertain 
whimsical  relations  toward  his  friends.  He  writes  to  borrow  six 
louis  d'or — "  and  even  if  you  are  no  longer  my  best  friend — as  I  do 
*'  not  hope — ^yet  you  are  still  the  one  among  my  best  friends  from 
"  whom  I  can  most  easily  borrow,  who,  as  a  perfect  philistine  can 
"most  easily  spare  a  few  louis  *  *  *  And  really.  Christian, 
"have  your  feelings  toward  me  remained  unchanged?  as  for  me, 
"  mine  remain  the  same,  that  is,  I  am  angry  with  you  now  as  ever 
"  nay,  I  should  like  to  burst  out  against  you  today  with  a  vengeance 
"  *  *  *  and  find  fault  with  you  and  abuse  you,  all  the  more  as 
"  I  wish  to  borrow  from  you  *  *  *  xhe  best  thing  about  you  is, 
"that  Hove  you  and  that  you  were  always  easy  to  borrow  from." 
This  letter  he  follows  by  another  September  1,  in  which  he  assures 
Sethe  that  he  is  giving  him  the  greatest  proof  of  his  friendship 
by  turning  to  him  in  distress  with  implicit  confidence,  "in  spite 
of  many  inner  impulses  of  ill  feeling' '  toward  him.  After  a  long 
silence  between  them,  Heine  reports  to  Klein  (December  25, 
1825)  that  he  saw  Sethe  the  summer  before  on  his  wedding  journey 
in  Norderney,  that  the  Councilor  had  married  "  in  order  that  the 
dear,  good,  true-hearted  race  might  not  die  out";  and  in  1843 
when  Heine  visited  Germany,  he  took  pains  to  hunt  up  his  old 
friend  in  Miinster. 

Among  his  professors,  August  Wilhelm  Schlegel  approached 
most  closely  to  Heine.  In  the  winter  semester  of  1819-1820  Heine 
heard  lectures  on  the  History  of  the  German  Language  and  Poetry 
by  Schlegel  and  in  the  summer  semester  of  1820  a  Historical- 
Critical  Exposition  of  the  Nibelungenlied  and  lectures  on  Metrics, 
Prosody,  and  Declamation;  and  Schlegel  certified  with  pleas- 
ure to  his  excellent  attendance  and  his  attentive  sympathy 
and  application.  He  took  a  kindly  interest  in  the  youthful  poems 
of  his  pupil  and  by  his  praise  and  wise  criticisms  he  fired  the  as- 
piring young  poet  to  vigorous  activity.  He  initiated  him  into 
the  mysteries  of  metrics,  and  to  him  Heine  owes  the  care  that  he 
spent  during  his  whole  lifetime  on  the  metrical  finish  of  his  poems. 
In  the  field  of  tragedy,  Schlegel's  encouragement  was  not  so  wise; 
possibly  he  misjudged  his  pupil  also  in  comparing  him  with  Byron 
and  stimulating  him  to  translate  the  English  poet;  but  on  the 
whole,  his  influence  was  significant.  The  marked  attentions 
that  he  showed  his  talented  young  pupil  were  extended  beyond  the 
class  room  to  his  elegant  home  and  Heine's  three  sonnets  to  him  are 
a  proof  of  the  respect  and  esteem  in  which  he  held  his  distinguished 

45 


teacher,  and  of  the  support  and  encouragement  received  from  him. 
"Concerning  my  relations  with  Schlegel,"   he  tells   his  friend 
Friedrich  v.  Beughem  in  1820,  "I  could  write  you  much  that  is 
"gratifying.     He  was  well  satisfied  with  my  poems  and  at  their 
"originality  almost  joyfully  astonished.     I  am  too  vain  to  be 
"  surprised  at  this.  I  felt  very  humble  when  I  recently  received  a 
'^formal  invitation  from  Schlegel  and  chatted  with  him  for  hours 
"  over  the  steaming  coffee  cup.     The  oftener  I  go  to  him,  the  more 
"  I  find  what  a  genius  he  is  and  that  it  can  be  said 
"  Unsichtbare  Grazien  ihn  umrauschen 
Um  neue  Anmut  von  ihm  zu  erlauschen.' ' 
But  in  spite  of  his  beautiful  tributes  to  Schlegel  during  his  univer- 
sity days,  Heine  treated  him  with  all  too  little  respect  in  his  "  Rom- 
antische  Schule";  for  while  his  characterization  is  after  all  incom- 
parable and  true,  the  personalities  are  offensive  and  unpardonable. 
Again  in  the  columns  of  the  "  Allgemeine  Zeitung' '  he  maliciously 
satirized  Schlegel  on  his  mania  for  public  distinction  ("  Probably 
with  the  exception  of  August  Wilhelm  Schlegel,  there  is  not  a 
woman  in  Germany  who  would  so  like  to  be  labelled  by  a  gay 
ribbon     *     *    *        * ")     in  revenge  for  a  hateful  epigram  in 
which  Schlegel  criticized  his  former  pupiFs  literary  activity  in 
Paris.     Heine  repeatedly  boasts  of  having  driven   his  literary 
rival  out  of  Paris  by  this  article. 

Of  all  Heine's  friends,  none  had  such  a  good  and  powerful 
influence  on  him  for  so  many  years  as  Moses  Moser.  A  banker 
by  calling,  he  nevertheless  found  time  to  devote  himself  to  all 
possible  philosophical  and  historical  studies  and  cultural  activities 
with  the  greatest  enthusiasm,  and  was  one  of  the  founders  of  the 
"Society  for  the  Culture  and  Education  of  the  Jews."  Heine 
calls  him  "  the  man  in  Israel  with  the  finest  feelings' ' — his  "  Arch- 
friend" — "the  philosophical  part"  of  himself — "the  correct 
edition  de  luxe  of  a  real  man,"  and  characterizes  him  as  a  "living 
epilog  to  Nathan  der  Weise."  He  confided  to  him  his  most 
cherished  plans,  his  dearest  wishes,  and  Moser  showed  him  endless 
proofs  of  helpfulness  and  devotion,  sending  him  reports  of  politics 
and  all  that  was  going  on  in  the  literary  and  artistic  circles  of  Ber- 
lin, when  Heine  was  in  Liineburg,  forwarding  him  whatever  books 
and  periodicals  he  needed  for  his  studies  and  loaning  him  money 
repeatedly.  His  kindness  and  willingness  were  inexhaustible  and 
a  voluminous  correspondence  was  maintained  between  the  friends 
from  1823  to  1830,  when  Heine  broke  with  him  in  a  most  contemp- 
tible fashion.  The  rupture  was  due  to  Moser 's  unfavorable  criti- 
cism of  the  third  volume  of  Heine's  "Reisebilder."    Heine  let  a 

46> 


period  of  silence  follow  Moser's  remarks  and  not  until  the  latter 
wrote  again,  attributing  his  silence  to  injured  pride,  did  Heine 
reply.  Then,  in  a  letter  to  Moser  from  Paris  June  27,  1831,  he 
writes:  "I  was  never  sensitive  over  any  opinion  of  yours  that 
"  concerned  the  poet;  also,  whether  you  blamed  or  praised  any  one 
^'of  my  acts  that  I  did  as  a  man, was,  if  not  quite  indifferent  to  me, 
"  yet  not  offensive.  I  am  neither  at  all  injured  by  you  nor  offended 
"and  my  silence  is  not  a  dumb  complaint.  I  complain  only  at 
"  the  gods,  who  left  me  in  error  so  long  over  the  way  in  which  you 
"  comprehended  my  life  and  aims.  The  latter  you  have  not  com- 
"prehended,  and  that  is  what  grieves  me,  you  do  not  yet  under- 
"  stand,  you  have  never  understood  my  life  and  aims,  and  our 
"friendship  has  therefore  not  ceased,  but  rather  never  existed. 
"We  never  demand  of  a  friend  agreement,  but  understanding  of 
"our  actions;  let  him  praise  or  blame  according  to  his  own  princi- 
"ples,  but  he  must  always  understand  them  and  comprehend 
''their  necessity  from  our  particular  standpoint,  even  if  his  own  is 
"quite  different." 

The  break  was  irreparable,  but  five  years  later  financial 
distress  forced  Heine  to  write  his  friend  a  most  touching  appeal 
for  aid,  in  which  he  assures  Moser  in  pathetic  words  of  his  friend- 
ship. "  Indeed  I  have  thought  of  you  often  enough  and  when  not 
"  long  ago  I  lay  sick  unto  death  and  in  a  sleepless  night  of  fever 
"  mustered  all  my  friends  to  whom  I  could  entrust  with  safety  the 
"  execution  of  a  last  will,  I  found  that  I  did  not  possess  two  such 
"friends  on  this  earth  and  believed  I  could  reckon  only  on  you, 
"perhaps  also  on  my  brother  Max.  And  therefore  I  turn  to  you 
"  today,  and  the  friend  to  whom  I  have  not  written  for  years  will 
"  receive  today  a  letter  from  me  asking  him  for  money.' ' 

Varnhagen  von  Ense  and  his  wife  Rahel,  who  received  and 
entertained  Heine  so  hospitably  in  Berlin,  had  likewise  to  suffer 
from  his  oversensitiveness  and  irritability.  Varnhagen  showed 
himself  always  a  wise  and  just  critic  of  Heine's  works  and  did 
much  to  establish  his  fame.  His  first  act  of  helpfulness  was  to 
seek  a  publisher  for  the  "Junge  Leiden"  and  to  introduce  the 
young  poet  to  Professor  Gubitz,  who  published,  we  remember,  a 
series  of  his  poems  in  the  "  Gesellschafter.' '  For  this  same  periodi- 
cal Varnhagen  wrote  an  appreciative  review  of  Heine's  poems, 
even  before  that  of  Immermann  appeared  and  he  was  also  the  first 
to  greet  with  a  few  friendly  words  the  "  Tragodien' '  (Gesellschafter, 
May  5,  1823).  In  his  own  characteristic  way,  Heine  often  ex- 
pressed his  gratitude  for  all  such  favors :  "  You  have  both  shown 
"me  such  great  kindness  and  love  and  have  cheered  and  braced 

47 


"  me  up  and  polished  me  off — ^me,  ill-humored,  sick  man — and 
"  helped  me  by  word  and  deed,  and  refreshed  me  with  maccaroni 
"  and  spiritual  food.  I  have  found  so  little  true  kindness  in  life 
''and  have  already  been  so  much  mystified,  and  from  you  and  your 
"noble-minded  wife  I  have  experienced  really  humane  treatment 
''for  the  first  time' '  (June  17,  1823). 

The  tribute  that  he  paid  Varnhagen  in  his  letter  to  Immer- 
mann  (January  14,  1823)  has  already  been  pointed  out.  It  was 
Heine's  practice  to  consult  him  in  financial  difficulties  and  on 
literary  questions  and  he  found  him  a  wise  counselor  and  just 
critic.  But  their  friendly  relations  were  somewhat  strained  at 
times,  and  once  Heine's  irritability  caused  a  break  that  might  have 
been  permanent  had  he  not  generously  made  the  first  advance 
toward  reconciliation.  It  happened  in  1823  when  Varnhagen 
accused  him  unjustly  of  a  falsehood  concerning  his  relations  with 
Fouque.  They  were  in  Hamburg  at  the  time  and  Heine  was  in  an 
unusually  nervous  and  excitable  mood,  because  of  the  painful 
associations  that  the  city  had  for  him,  so  that  he  magnified  the 
importance  of  the  affair.  When,  however,  in  the  following  spring 
Heine  returned  to  Berlin,  he  longed  so  to  restore  the  old  friendship 
that  he  wrote  Varnhagen  a  most  conciliatory  letter  and  succeeded 
in  re-establishing  the  former  confidence  and  intimacy  again. 

As  for  Rahel,  her  instinctive  appreciation  of  Heine's  poetic 
gift  and  peculiar  temperament  was  immediately  felt  by  him  and  he 
joyfully  owned  that  no  one  understood  him  so  well  as  she.  "I 
do  not  need  to  write  Frau  von  Varnhagen  long  letters.  If  she 
only  knows  that  I  am  alive,  she  knows  also  what  I  feel  and  think.' ' 
His  letters  are  full  of  affection  for  "  the  dear,  good,  little  woman 
with  the  great  soul,"  who  had  been  kind  to  him — "a  poor  waif 
of  a  despised  race."  In  a  farewell  note  to  her  April  12,  1823, 
occurs  this  passage:  "  *  *  *  if  perhaps  after  several  cen- 
"  turies  I  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you  again  as  the  loveliest  and 
"most  splendid  of  all  flowers  in  the  loveliest  and  most  splendid  of 
"  all  the  vales  of  heaven,  then  have  the  kindness  again  to  greet  me 
"  — poor  prickly  holly  (or  am  I  something  still  worse?)  with  your 
"  friendly  glance  and  sweet  breath,  as  an  old  acquaintance.  You 
"  will  surely  do  it — ^have  you  not  already  acted  in  a  like  manner  in 
"  1822  and  1823,  when  you  treated  me — sick,  embittered,  surly, 
"  poetic,  and  insufferable  being — ^with  a  grace  and  kindness  which 
"  I  certainly  have  not  deserved  in  this  life,  and  for  which  I  must  be 
"indebted  only  to  kindly  memories  of  an  earlier  acquaintance?" 
To  her  he  dedicated  his  "  Heimkehr,' '  writing  later  to  her  husband 
(July  29,  1826) :     "  The  reasons  for  my  dedication  she  has  divined, 

48 


I  believe,  better  than  I  myself.  It  seemed  to  me  as  if  I  wished  to 
-express  in  this  way  that  I  belonged  to  some  one."  Yet  even 
Rahel  had  to  suffer  from  his  oversensitiveness,  for  he  took  offence 
at  a  well-meant  reproof  of  hers,  that  if  he  considered  his  visits 
such  a  great  favor  to  her,  she  did  not  wish  him  to  come.  His 
Answer  the  next  day  was  curt  and  cold  and  betrayed  clearly  that 
his  pride  was  wounded  and  that  he  was  receiving  all  too  much 
attention;  but  he  soon  came  to  a  realization  of  the  wrong  he  had 
done  his  friend  through  his  hasty  words  and  with  a  profusion  of 
roses  he  made  his  peace  again. 

Heine's  friendship  and  break  with  Ludwig  Borne  are  too  well 
known  to  require  more  than  a  mention  here.  For  years  the  two 
men  were  regarded  as  like-minded  apostles  of  freedom,  and  in 
1827  Heine,  in  passing  through  Frankfort,  sought  him  out  and 
spent  three  days  of  idyllic  peacefulness  in  the  enjoyment  of  Borne's 
wit,  good-humor  and  kindly  interest  in  him.  But  in  Paris  the 
political  antagonism  and  personal  friction  became  apparent  and 
Heine's  essay  "  Ueber  Borne' '  is  the  most  heartless  of  all  his  works 
and  the  most  difficult  to  defend. 

To  no  one  was  Heine  more  loyal  than  to  his  publisher,  Julius 
Campe,  whose  wide  experience  with  young  writers  gave  him  a 
peculiar  influence  over  them.  Heine  repeatedly  praises  his  keen- 
ness of  insight  and  was  sensible  to  the  wisdom  of  his  advice  and 
judgment.  He  took  from  him  corrections  and  plain  speech  that 
he  would  never  have  borne  from  another,  accepted  his  suggestions 
regarding  changes  in  his  manuscripts,  restrained  himself  many 
times  from  some  hasty  action,  and  altogether  betrayed  a  childlike 
faith  in  his  older  friend.  The  relations,  however,  were  of  a  dis- 
tinctly Heinesque  character;  time  after  time  they  were  on  the  point 
of  rupture,  when  Heine  would  remember  to  distinguish  in  business 
disagreements  between  the  publishing  firm  of  Hoffmann  and  Campe 
and  the  person  of  his  old  friend  Julius  Campe  (letter  to  Campe 
April  7,  1835).  He  complains  unceasingly  of  the  paltry  amounts 
received  for  his  books  and  abuses  Campe  both  directly  to  his  face 
and  indirectly  in  his  letters  to  others, — ^not  only  on  account  of 
his  lack  of  liberality,  though  Heine  feels  that  keenly,  but  also  be- 
cause of  the  mutilations  to  which  Campe  allows  his  manuscripts 
to  be  submitted.  Forgetful  of  how  much  he  really  owed  Campe 
for  his  cleverness  in  outwitting  the  censorship,  he  raves  again  and 
again  over  the  fact  that  his  writings  are  so  handled  that  his  words 
no  longer  represent  his  thoughts  at  all :  he  vows  that  he  will  never 
give  Campe  another  line,  if  he  does  not  print  his  poems  as  they  were 
written;  hostilities  sometimes  lasted  for  whole  years.     Fortunately, 

49 


\ 


however,  the  relations  were  never  entirely  broken  off  and  both 
parties  gained  thereby.  Maximilian  Heine  relates  in  his  "  Erinner- 
ungen' '  a  scene  with  his  brother  in  Paris,  when  the  question  arose 
as  to  whether  the  poet  would  ever  have  a  monument  in  his  father- 
land. 

"  In  Hamburg  I  have  one  already,"  interrupted  the  poet  with 
a  satirical  smile. 

"  Where?' '  exclaimed  Maximilian  in  astonishment. 

"  If  you  keep  to  your  left  from  the  Borsenplatz,  you  will  see 
"a,  large  house,  which  belongs  to  the  publisherof  my 'Reisebilder,' 
''Mr.  Julius  Campe.  That  is  a  magnificent  monument  of  stone,  in 
''grateful  remembrance  of  the  many  and  large  editions  of  my 
" 'BuchderLiederT' 

In  this  way  I  could  continue  indefinitely  the  list  of  Heine's 
friends,  showing  how  in  his  gloomy  hours  he  turned  rudely  away 
from  them  and  in  pride  and  agony  misjudged  their  love  and  scorned 
it.  At  such  times  he  felt  himself,  like  Goethe's  Tasso,  the  object 
of  a  conspiracy,  became  suspicious  and  sarcastic,  and  then  bitterly 
repented  the  hasty  words  or  deed  that  resulted  in  estranging  him 
from  his  friends.  Toward  Immermann,  on  the  contrary,  he  never 
made  use  of  his  sarcasm  or  caustic  wit;  the  tone  of  his  letters  is  one 
of  deepest  respect,  with  at  times  something  of  deference  even. 

The  question  is  asked  whether,  if  Heine  had  seen  more  of 
Immermann,  he  would  not  have  despised  him  as  a  philistine — ^the 
type  of  man  he  most  abhorred :  Immermann  himself  acknowledges 
to  Beer  (May  3,  1830)  that  he  has  "  the  tinge  of  a  certain  genteel 
Philistinism"  in  his  nature.  My  answer  to  this  question  I  shall 
reserve  until  the  conclusion  of  my  thesis.  In  the  meantime, 
there  is  one  thing  to  be  borne  in  mind:  namely,  that  Heine 
idealized  all  his  friends  to  some  extent.  In  Rousseau  and  the 
other  "  poets' '  of  his  Bonn  days,  he  saw  the  same  nobility  of  pur- 
pose with  which  he  was  inspired  and  a  striving  for  the  same  lofty 
ideals.  Hence  his  encouragement  of  their  literary  efforts  and  his 
reluctance  to  admit  their  failures.  Throughout  his  life,  Heine 
continued  to  idealize  his  friends  and  the  members  of  his  family, 
seeing  in  them  what  he  wished  to  see.  This  tendency  is  the  natural 
and  inevitable  quality  of  the  subjective  temperament,  and  of  this 
type  we  have  no  better  example  than  Heine.  As  he  absorbed  by 
his  personality  the  whole  external  world  and  saw  all  nature  as  a 
mere  reflection  of  his  own  moods,  himself  the  center  of  the  universe 
and  everything  else  in  sympathy  with  him,  so  it  followed  that  he 
projected  himself  likewise  in  his  friends  and  found  in  them  the  image 
of  his  own  ideals  and  beliefs.     This  happened,  I  am  convinced,  in 

50 


the  case  of  Immermann,  and  in  connection  with  their  political  views 
I  shall  speak  of  the  subject  again.  Meanwhile,  if  we  remember  to 
distinguish  between  what  Immermann  really  was  and  what  Heine 
thought  he  was,  we  shall  be  better  able  to  understand  the  reasons 
for  the  friendship. 

In  the  first  place,  a  mutual  sympathy  drew  the  poets  together. 
"  Sick,  isolated,  persecuted,  and  unable  to  enjoy  life' '  are  the  words 
in  which  Heine  sums  up  his  condition  at  this  time.  "  I  have  almost 
no  friends  at  all  here  now;  a  pack  of  scoundrels  have  striven  in 
every  possible  way  to  ruin  me,  they  unite  with  old  so-called  friends, 
etc.''  (letter  to  Sethe,  Berlin,  January  21,  1823).  As  a  result  of 
the  adverse  criticism  of  his  "  Brief e  aus  Berlin,"  sneers  and  taunts 
had  begun  to  be  directed  even  against  his  poems;  the  second  letter 
almost  brought  on  a  literary  feud  with  Baron  von  Schilling  and  he 
was  attacked  by  Kochy  in  the  "  Konversationsblatt."  The 
essay  "Ueber  Polen"  which  appeared  in  the  "  Gesellschafter" 
in  January  1823,  called  down  the  wrath  of  the  nobility  upon  his 
head.  He  had  written  it  the  preceding  fall  for  a  certain  Count 
Breza,  at  whose  invitation  he  had  visited  Posen  during  the  summer 
and  whose  departure  from  Berlin  he  speaks  of  with  such  regret  in 
the  Berlin  letters.  In  spite  of  the  censor's  red  pencil,  the  article 
aroused  great  antagonism  and  in  Heine's  own  words  to  his  Jewish 
friend  Wohlwill  (April  1,  1823):  "This  essay  has  agitated  the 
"whole  grand  duchy  of  Posen;  in  the  Posen  journals  there  has  al- 
"ready  been  three  times  as  much  abuse  written  about  it  as  the 
"essay  itself  amounts  to,  and,  what  is  more,  by  the  Germans  there, 
"who  will  not  forgive  me  for  portraying  them  so  faithfully  and  for 
"raising  the  Jews  to  the  third  estate  of  Poland."  His  attempts 
to  shake  off  abuse  with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders  were  vain;  Heine 
shrank  from  it  and  could  not  overlook  it  with  the  ease  of  a  less 
sensitively  organized  person.  To  Immermann  and  others  he 
complains  of  the  slander  and  injustice  to  which  he  is  subjected 
and  envies  the  former  his  fine  health,  which  must  enable  him  to 
disregard  such  ill-treatment. 

The  sense  of  isolation  was  common  to  both  poets.  It  was 
deepened  in  Immermann  by  his  conflict  with  the  "Teutonia," 
as  I  have  said,  and  no  doubt  Heine's  expulsion  from  the  Gottingen 
Burschenschaft  was  a  factor  that  contributed  to  his  loneliness. 
Then  as  they  became  more  sensible  to  the  indifference  of  the  times 
to  poetry,  they  felt  that  they  could  never  be  understood  by  their 
contemporaries  and  their  hostility  to  their  surroundings  became 
greater.  "  More  than  ever  the  poet  takes  his  stand  in  open  opposi- 
tion to  the  rest  of  the  world,' '  says  Immermann  in  his  Rezension, 

51 


and  this  feeling  of  isolation  was  but  a  foretaste  of  what  both  poets 
were  to  suffer  all  their  lives — ^the  pathetic  solitude  of  genius. 

Soon  after  the  appreciative  article  of  Immermann's  appeared , 
Heine  writes  to  Ernst  Christian  August  Keller  (June  15,  1822): 
"Immermann's  review  moved  me  almost  to  tears.  I  am  really 
"taken  aback  by  the  fact  that  I  am  most  profoundly  understood 
"in  Miinster.  In  general,  the  susceptibility  that  my  compatriots 
"have  shown  for  my  slight  talents  and  the  profoundness  with  which 
"  they  have  judged  the  same  has  greatly  delighted  me,  all  the  more 
"  as  here  all  sentiment  is  getting  more  dulled  every  day  and  the 
"critics  almost  surpass  the  authors  in  shallowness  of  mind." 
Sept.  1,  1822  he  refers  to  the  subject  again  in  a  letter  to  the  same 
man:  "Whether  I  am  praised  or  blamed,  I  am  unmoved;  I  go 
"  my  stern  way,  which  I  have  once  recognized  as  the  best.  Some 
"say  it  will  lead  me  into  the  mire,  others  say  it  will  lead  me  to  Par- 
"  nassus,  still  others  say  it  will  lead  directly  to  hell.  It  is  all  one 
"  to  me,  the  way  is  new  and  I  am  seeking  adventure.  But  never- 
"  theless  the  love  with  which  I  have  been  received  by  my  compa- 
"triots  has  moved  me.  Truly  I  have  been  treated  better  than  I 
"deserve.' ' 

It  is  not  surprising,  in  consideration  of  the  abuse  and  slander 
which  Heine's  first  works  had  called  forth,  that  Immermann's 
sympathetic  understanding  of  his  poetry  and  character  won  his 
deepest  gratitude.  But  I  would  refute  at  the  start  the  idea  that 
Heine's  subsequent  praise  of  Immermann  grew  out  of  this  sense  of 
gratitude.  And  with  just  as  little  reason  can  we  attribute  it  to  the 
feeling  of  gratified  vanity.  That  Heine  was  vain  needs  no  proof, 
his  vanity  crops  out  in  a  most  naive  way.  The  quality  of  reserve 
seemed  to  have  been  left  out  of  his  character  and  we  find  instead 
a  frankness  in  the  expression  of  his  feelings  that  disregards  all 
proprieties  and  sentiments.  A  certain  childlike  openness  remained 
with  him  always  and  he  loved  to  talk  about  his  works  and  to  know 
what  others  said  about  them.  Instances  of  this  trait  are  number- 
less. In  speaking  of  his  "  Almansor,' '  for  example,  he  writes  to 
Steinmann,  February  4,  1821 :  "  "^^  *  '''  it  contains  bewitchingly 
"lovely  passages  and  scenes;  originality  is  everywhere  in  evidence; 
"everywhere  scintillate  surprisingly  poetic  figures  and  ideas,  so 
"that  the  whole  flashes  and  gleams  as  though  in  a  magic  shimmer  of 
"diamonds.  Thus  speaks  the  vain  author,  the  enthusiast  for 
"poetry."  To  Friedrich  von  Beughem  (1820)  he  writes:  "His 
"  (Schlegel's)  first  question  is  always  concerning  the  publication 
"of  my  poems,  and  he  seems  to  desire  it  very  much.  Also  you, 
"dear  Fritz,  seem  to  ask  me  about  it  likewise.     Unfortunately, 

52 


"  on  account  of  the  many  changes  that  I  have  made  on  SchlegePs 
"advice,  I  have  still  many  poems  to  rewrite  and  many  entirely 
"new  poems  and  metrical  translations  of  the  Englishman  to  add 
"to  them.  The  latter  are  succeeding  especially  well  and  will 
"  prove  my  poetic  dexterity.  Enough  of  self-praise.' '  To  Moser, 
November  6,  1823 :  "  It  has  aroused  my  indignation  to  see  from 
"your  letter  that  evil  things  have  been  said  and  written  of  me 
"from  Hamburg  *  *  *  I  expect  you  to  write  me  openly.  It 
"  is  of  endless  moment  to  me  to  know  what  people  say  about  me  in 
"Hamburg."  Again  in  the  same  month  he  begs  Moser  to  write 
him  the  full  particulars  of  his  status  in  that  city  and  of  Lehmann 
he  makes  a  similar  request.  Often  Heine  solicited  praise  from  his 
friends  and  was  cast  down  when  he  did  not  get  it.  But  he  sought 
it  openly  and  never  tried  to  procure  it  by  flattery.  To  Stein- 
mann,  one  of  the  closest  of  his  early  friends,  he  writes,  February  4, 
1821 :  "  I  have  read  and  re-read  with  a  hearty  sense  of  comfort 
"  your  dramatic  specimens  sent  me.  But  the  fact  that  you  ask 
''my  opinion  of  them  puts  me  to  embarrassment.  I  am  too  well 
"  acquainted  with  man  in  general  not  to  know  that  people  expect 
"  only  praise,  when  they  beg,  even  in  all  humility,  for  the  severest 
"judgment,  that  they  nevertheless  at  heart  look  upon  such  a 
"judgment  as  unjust,  if  it  turns  out  to  be  fault-finding  or  quite 
"  crushing,  and  even  if  they  do  not  exactly  hate  the  honest  critic 
"  on  that  account,  neither  will  they  love  him  the  more  for  it.  For 
"men  are  the  vainest  creatures  and  poets  are  the  vainest  among 
"  men.  Whoever  wounds  the  vanity  of  a  poet  commits  a  two-fold 
"lese-majesty.  This  is  precisely  where  I  fail,  and  it  is  just  this 
"which  makes  me  universally  hated,  that  I  know  this  experience 
"  and  yet  do  not  turn  it  to  account.' ' 

Now  Steinmann  was  one  of  Heine's  most  intimate  associates 
during  his  Bonn  days.  Together  with  Simrock,  Rousseau, 
Beughem,  and  Neunzig,  the  two  formed  a  little  coterie  of  "poets," 
who  displayed  great  enthusiasm  over  art  and  criticized  each  other's 
works  with  lively  interest.  But  Heine  saw  that  Steinmann  had 
no  real  poetic  gift,  and,  in  sp"te  of  the  desire  to  please  his  friends, 
Heine  showed  himself  a  stern  critic  and  told  him  the  hard  truths 
without  hesitation,  softening  them  somewhat  with  his  kindly  wit 
and  encouragement.  "  Be  severe  toward  yourself,' '  is  his  constant 
admonition,  and  he  adds  (Oct.  29,  1820) :  "  you  know  I  seldom 
"  praise,  but  when  I  have  reason  to  bestow  praise,  it  flows  all  the 
"more  irresistibly  from  the  depth  of  the  heart.  Steinmann's  so- 
" called  'dramatic  poems'  he  criticizes  thus:  "You  have  at 
"least  produced  real  tragedies.     But  whether  they  are  good? 

53 


"  *  *  ♦  I  doubt  it.  Perhaps  the  fault  lies  in  the  trochaic 
"tetrameter,  which  to  me  is  intolerable  anywhere  in  a  drama. 
"Possibly  from  prejudice  I  tolerate  there  only  the  iambic  penta- 
" meter,  yet  these  iambics  must  not  rhyme;  or  at  most  only  in 
"strictly  lyrical  passages  *  *  *  The  poetical  figures  *  *  * 
"  look  like  Pharoah's  lean  cattle.  What  surprises  me  most  in  you 
"  is  that  everything  bears  the  character  of  haste.  Finish  'Anna 
"von  Cleve.'  I  believe  you  could  put  it  on  the  stage  if  you  should 
"work  in  allusions  to  the  trial  of  the  present  Queen  of  England. 
"Study  that  trial.  But,  in  general,  be  severe  toward  yourself. 
"This  cannot  be  sufficiently  recommended  in  the  case  of  young 
"poets." 

"Many  a  one  of  your  poetic  compositions  (to  Steinmann, 
"April  10,  1823)  has  come  to  my  notice  since  (his  last  letter), 
"and  most  of  them  have  appealed  to  me  in  an  unusual  degree. 
"  But  much  also  has  not  come  up  to  my  expectations.  You  have 
"  known  of  old  my  honest  severity  and  my  severe  honesty  in  such 
"  things  and  if  you  are  still  the  old  Steinmann  and  have  still  the 
"  old  confidence  in  me,  then  such  a  judgment  will  certainly  not 
"  wrong  you.  Some  of  your  songs  I  liked  very  much,  but  in  one 
"  of  them  I  almost  broke  my  leg  over  the  old  familiar  rough  hewn 
"  'hold'  (Heine  had  earlier  criticized  Steinmann's  use  of  this  word), 
"and  however  much  respect  and  approval  the  little  tragedy 
"  claimed,  yet  in  one  ice-cold  place  in  it  I  nearly  froze  to  death. 
*'I  hope  you  will  write  something  that  might  be  more  suitable 
"for  the  stage." 

Such  plain  speech  is  not  the  language  of  one  who  returns 
praise  for  praise,  whether  it  is  due  or  not.  If  this  had  been 
Heine's  practice,  he  would  have  had  many  occasions  to  use  his 
eloquence  and  comment  favorably  upon  the  works  of  his  friends, 
notably  in  his  relations  to  Ludwig  and  Friederike  Robert.  But 
neither  gratitude  alone  nor  desire  for  notice  and  approval  was  a 
sufficient  impulse  to  friendship;  in  several  instances  Heine  even 
forfeited  a  friendly  relation  through  his  frankness  in  speaking 
what  he  considered  the  truth. 

In  the  six  months  that  elapsed  before  Heine  acknowledged 
Immermann's  article,  he  came  to  feel  intimately  acquainted  with 
his  works  and  the  personality  of  the  author.  He  tells  him  out- 
right that  he  is  not  satisfied  with  his  poems,  because  he  read  the 
tragedies  first,  but  with  the  latter  he  is  so  delighted  and  in  praise 
of  them  he  has  so  much  to  say  that  he  will  have  to  wait  until  a 
more  favorable  time,  when  he  is  not  oppressed  with  sickness.  Only 
"  receive  for  the  present  my  sacred  assurance  that  I  consider  you 

54 


"next  to  Oehlenschlager  the  best  living  dramatist."  Since  this 
statement  must  be  indicative  of  Heine's  true  sentiments  concerning 
Immermann,  let  us  consider  as  our  second  point  the  reasons  why 
Heine  was  attracted  to  Immermann  on  the  literary  side. 

Why  did  he  like  "  Das  Tal  von  Ronceval"?  That  Heine  was 
much  interested  in  the  legend  of  Roland  is  shown  by  his  poem 
"An  eine  Sangerin — als  sie  eine  alte  Romanze  sang" — the  first 
"  occasional  poem' '  of  the  young  writer.  His  brother  Max  relates 
in  his  "  Erinnerungen' '  that  there  was  at  that  time  attached  to  the 
Diisseldorf  opera  a  very  beautiful  young  singer  with  a  wonderful 
alto  voice.  She  lived  a  rather  retired  life  with  her  mother  and 
went  about  very  little  except  with  the  Heine  family,  in  whose 
home  she  was  looked  upon  almost  as  a  daughter.  On  the  occasion 
of  a  great  concert  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor,  this  singer,  whose  name 
was  Karoline  Stern,  sang  at  Frau  Heine's  request,  an  old  romance, 
which  called  forth  an  unprecedented  storm  of  approval,  and  Frau 
Heine,  during  the  supper  that  followed  at  her  home,  expressed  her 
regret  that  it  had  never  occurred  to  any  of  the  gentlemen  to  dedi- 
cate a  poem  to  her.  Harry,  who  throughout  the  evening  had  had 
eyes  only  for  the  charming  singer,  gave  to  his  mother  the  next 
morning  the  above  mentioned  poem,  which  pleased  the  singer  so 
greatly  that  she  kissed  the  confused  young  poet  and  treasured 
the  romance  as  the  dearest  souvenir.  The  mood  that  stole  over 
the  boy  on  listening  to  the  old  legend  of  Roland  and  the  Tal  von 
Ronceval,  the  Romantic  haze  that  enveloped  the  singer,  and  the 
re-animation  of  Charlemagne's  knightly  characters — it  is  all  so 
typical  of  Heine,  even  to  the  last  stanza,  when  he  is  aroused  out 
of  his  revery  by  the  applause  of  the  audience  and  shouts  of  "  bravo !" 

Another  evidence  of  his  fondness  for  the  legend  is  found  in 
"  Atta  Troll' '  where  he  lets  the  bear  hero  take  refuge  in  the  highly 
romantic  valley  of  Ronceval  in  the  Pyrenees,  the  scene  of  Roland's 
death.  The  poet's  journey  thither  is  pictured  with  all  the  Roman- 
tic ecstasy  that  he  was  capable  of. 

So  much  for  the  legend.  There  are  also  lyrical  beauties  con- 
tained in  the  tragedy,  which  would  attract  Heine.  Of  one  such 
passage  he  writes  to  Immermann,  April  10,  1823:  "The  place 
"  where  Zoraide  impels  Roland  to  flight  always  moves  me  even  to 
"tears.  It  seems  as  if  I  had  once  wished  to- write  this  passage 
"  myself,  and  could  not  because  of  excessive  pain.  In '  Almansor' 
"  somewhere  I  attempted  it  again,  but  in  vain.  Astonishing  how 
"many  similarities  these  works  have,  even  in  material  and  setting! 
"  Some  of  the  very  lines  from  Immermann's  tragedy  Heine  adopted 


55 


"as  the  motto  of  his  'Almansor, '  so  striking  did  he  feel  the  resem- 
blance to  be  between  their  dramas : 

"  Glaubt  nicht,  es  sei  so  ganz  und  gar  phantastisch, 
Das  hiibsche  Lied,  das  ich  euch  freundlich  biete! 
Hort  zu :    es  ist  halb  episch  und  halb  drastisch, 
Dazwischen  bliiht  manch  lyrisch  zarte  Bliite! 
Romantisch  ist  der  Stoff,  die  Form  ist  plastisch, 
Das  ganze  aber  Kam  aus  dem  Gemiite. 
Es  kampfen  Christ  und  Moslem,  Nord  und  Siiden, 
Die  Liebe  kommt  am  End  und  macht  den  Frieden.' ' 

It  is  evident  that  the  lines  belong  quite  as  properly  to  Heine's 
tragedy  as  to  Immermann's.  Heine's  material  is  decidedly  roman- 
tic and  the  form  plastic  in  the  sense  in  which  he  understood  the 
word,  which  he  interpreted  in  his  excellent  little  essay  on  the 
"  Romantik' '  as  referring  to  clearness  of  outline  in  contrast  to  the 
vagueness  of  the  Romantic  forms.  The  third  verse  from  the  last 
belongs  even  more  truly  to  "  Almansor"  than  to  "Ronceval,'' be- 
cause the  love  element  in  the  latter  had  little  similarity  with 
Immermann's  own  heart-tragedy,  being  objective  rather,  and  com- 
mon to  the  Romanticists  in  general,  while  Heine's  came  from  the 
"Gemiit"  and  was  purely  subjective. 

Perhaps  the  second  of  the  three  tragedies  "  Edwin' '  interested 
Heine  especially  because  of  the  English  setting,  since  he  himself 
had  written  in  January  1822  a  tragedy,  "William  Ratclifife," 
treating  the  old  Scotch  ballad  of  "  Edward' '  and  laying  the  scene 
in  England.  Also  "Edwin"  is  even  richer  in  fine  lyric  and  epic 
qualities  than  "  Ronceval,' '  but,  more  than  this,  it  contains  as  a 
very  prominent  element  what  must  have  spoken  to  Heine's  heart : 
namely,  that  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  age.  Mixed  up  with  the 
romantically  poetical  is  a  most  modern  irony  and  a  practical, 
everyday  sort  of  reflection  upon  the  shortcomings  of  the  present. 
All  of  Immermann's  works  except  his  last  have  this  tone  of  discon- 
tent and  of  resignation  to  conditions  that  seem  almost  hopeless; 
and  of  course  this  disharmony  between  ideals  and  real  life  is  the 
keynote  to  Heine's  writings  and  to  his  Romantic  Irony,  with  which 
he  tried  to  bridge  the  deep  chasm  between  reality  and  idealism. 

He  with  many  of  his  Berlin  friends  considered  the  drama 
suitable  for  the  stage,  but  other  readers  laughed  to  scorn  his  efforts 
to  secure  its  production.  "Your  'Edwin'  is  being  viciously 
attacked,"  he  writes  Immermann  (Jan.  21,  1823),  and  he  encloses 
a^clipping  from  the  "  Freimiitigen"  of  the  18th,   containing  a 

56 


particularly  annoying  form  of  abuse — ^which,  by  the  way,  he 
wrongly  attributed  to  Uechtritz  as  the  originator,  to  whom  he 
generously  apologized  on  learning  his  error.  In  this  notice  "the 
Rhenish  artist,  Herr  Heinrich  Heine,  who  from  excessive  modesty 
does  not  venture  to  come  forward  with  his  talent,  is  urgently 
requested  by  his  admirers  to  delight  them  with  mimic-plastic  repre- 
sentations from  Immermann's  'Edwin.'  " 

But  better  than  "Edwin"  Heine  liked  the  third  drama 
"  Petrarca' '  because,  as  he  states  in  his  letter  June  10,  1823,  it  is 
more  concentrated,  although  "Edwin"  is  richer.  "It  is  true," 
he  continues,  "that  just  because  you  did  not  know  how  to  concen- 
"trate  strictly  your  boundless  wealth,  not  everybody  can  over- 
"  look  the  same,  and  your  tragedies  do  not  have  the  phalanx-like 
''effect,  as  those  of  many  of  our  present  writers  of  tragedy,  who 
"laboriously  compress  into  five  acts  all  their  stock  of  beet-root 
"poetry.  With  me  the  art  of  concentration  was  easier  to  practice, 
"  because  I  had  only  a  little  bit  of  the  world,  only  a  single  theme  to 
"represent.  Since  then,  especially  this  winter,  in  a  condition  of 
"illness,  I  have  absorbed  more,  and  in  the  tragedy  that  I  shall 
"perhaps  publish  in  a  few  years,  it  may  become  manifest  whether 
"I,  who  have  heretofore  painted  only  the  history  of  Cupid  and 
"Psyche  in  all  varieties  of  grouping,  can  paint  equally  well  the 
"Trojan  War." 

To  be  sure,  the  speeches  of  the  characters  are  still  too  long 
and  the  style  verbose,  but  Heine  knows  that  this  is  a  common 
error  of  all  young  poets  and  that  his  "  Almansor' '  has  the  same 
fault,  because  of  the  "  accursed  metaphorical  language' '  in  which 
he  has  had  to  let  "Almansor"  and  his  oriental  associates  talk 
(April  10,  1823).  This  would  help  to  account  for  the  leniency  with 
which  Heine  regarded  the  same  weakness  in  Immermann. 

The  very  subject — a  theme  of  love  without  any  further  idea — 
would  be  apt  also  to  attract  Heine,  and,  indeed,  the  public  in  gener- 
al; we  know  that  Varnhagen  liked  "  Petrarca' '  by  far  the  best.  It 
was  written  under  the  influence  of  Immermann's  love  for  Elise, 
and  is  the  most  personal  of  the  three  tragedies.  A  sympathetic 
reader  could  not  fail  to  catch  this  intimate  note  and  get  a  deeper 
insight  into  the  personality  of  the  author.  On  the  whole,  it  seems 
to  us  the  best  in  style,  composition,  and  plot.  Although  Immer- 
mann did  not  create  any  real  characters  until  he  produced  his 
"Miinchhausen,"  yet  he  did  succeed  in  sharply  individualizing 
some  of  his  persons  in  "Edwin,"  and  "Petrarca"  shows  some  fur- 
ther progress  in  characterization. 


57 


Moreover,  the  metre  satisfied  Heme's  sense  of  propriety, 
for,  like  the  other  two  dramas,  the  "  Petrarca' '  is  written  princi- 
pally in  iambic  pentameter.  While  under  Immermann's  pen  this 
verse  was  neither  musical  nor  fluent,  it  was  the  only  metre,  as  we 
have  learned  from  his  words  to  Steinmann,  which  Heine  could 
tolerate  in  a  drama.  His  efforts  to  get  the  play  produced  on  the 
Braunschweig  stage  failed,  in  spite  of  favorable  promises  on  the 
part  of  the  director. 

These,  then,  are  some  of  the  reasons  why  Heine  placed  Immer- 
mann  next  to  the  leading  Danish  Romanticist,  Oehlenschlager. 
In  how  far  was  he  right?  Goethe  was  dead,  as  Heine  expressed 
it,  and,  in  the  same  sense,  so  was  Tieck.  With  Kleist's  suicide 
in  1811  the  drama  received  a  blow  from  which  it  was  long  in  recov- 
ering. The  Romantic  School  with  all  its  theories  was  unable  to 
produce  a  single  dramatist  of  note.  That  strange  phenomenon, 
Christian  Dietrich  Grabbe,  was  too  unbalanced  ever  to  write 
dramas  of  stage  merit,  and  his  "Herzog  Theodor  von  Gothland,'' 
which  was  the  only  drama  as  yet  begun  by  him,  had  in  Heine's 
eyes  not  very  much  poetic  or  dramatic  promise.  Nor  had  Michael 
Beer  shown  what  he  could  do  for  the  stage,  while  Platen's  satirical 
dramas,  in  imitation  of  Tieck's,  were  not  written  for  some  years 
later.  The  period  was  dominated  in  part  by  Raupach,  who  had 
succeeded  Kotzebue  as  playwright,  and  like  his  predecessor,  held 
the  higher  ideals  of  poetry  in  cynical  contempt ;  in  part  by  the  fate- 
tragedy,  a  type  for  which  Zacharias  Werner  with  his  "  Vierund- 
zwanzigster  Februar"  set  the  fashion  in  1808  and  which  Milliner 
and  Houwald  imitated  for  more  than  a  decade.  So  far  it  is  not 
surprising  that  Heine  ranked  Immermann  above  the  other  living 
dramatists,  but  he  overlooked  the  most  illustrious  name  in  the 
literary  annals  of  Austria — ^Franz  Grillparzer.  "Die  Ahnfrau" 
had  been  received  in  1817  with  great  enthusiasm  by  the  Viennese 
public:  "Sappho"  had  appeared  the  next  year,  "Das  goldene 
Vliess"  in  1820,  Grillparzer's  mastery  of  dramatic  technique,  the 
striking  beauty  of  his  verse,  the  classic  proportions  of  these  trage- 
dies seem  to  have  made  no  impression  upon  Heine.  Indeed, 
according  to  a  letter  from  Alfred  Meissner,  who  is  one  of  the  most 
trustworthy  sources  for  our  knowledge  of  Heine's  later  life,  to 
Gustav  Karpeles  (quoted  in  the  latter's  biography  of  Heine)  the 
poet  never,  to  his  recollection,  mentioned  Grillparzer :  he  certainly 
did  not  exist  for  Heine.  Their  natures  were  too  widely  different 
although  there  are  many  connections  between  "Ratcliffe"  and 
"  Ahnfrau,' '  the  latter  being,  for  one  thing,  virtually  a  fate-tragedy. 


5S 


I 


This  failure  to  recognize  the  greatest  dramatic  poet  of  the 
nineteenth  century  seems  strange  to  us,  who  see  Grillparzer  now 
in  all  his  literary  significance  and  forget  how  he  might  have  appeared 
to  his  contemporaries.  In  his  adherence  to  the  traditions  of  the 
Weimar  Classicists,  Grillparzer  must  have  seemed  imitative  and 
coldly  objective  to  the  Romantic  poets,  who  demanded  subjectivity 
and  placed  too  much  emphasis  on  the  personal  note  and  the  imagi- 
native element.  Yet  Heine  does  reveal  a  somewhat  uncritical 
judgment  in  other  respects,  which  we  may  attribute  to  his  youth. 
He  had  an  open  mind  and  a  good  gift  of  observation,  but  he  could 
not  pass  judgment  with  the  sureness  and  unprejudice  of  a  more 
experienced  person;  he  understood  too  little  of  the  great  move- 
ments— ^literary,  political,  and  social — ^to  grasp  their  full  meaning 
at  that  time.  An  interesting  and  charming  little  essay  written  in 
the  summer  of  1821  only  confirms  this  opinion;  for  it  treats  sym- 
pathetically, even  lovingly,  the  tragedy  by  Wilhlem  Smets  called 
"Tassos  Tod" — a  work  abounding  in  rhetorical  and  bombastic 
language  and  far  surpassing  Immermann's  tragedies  in  extrava- 
gance of  expression.  The  impulse  to  write  it  doubtless  came 
partly  from  Heine's  desire  to  clarify  his  own  ideas  on  the  subject 
of  the  requisites  of  a  good  drama  and  to  account  for  the  principles 
of  esthetics  that  he  already  entertained,  since  now  all  his  interest, 
as  we  know,  was  centered  in  his  own  dramatic  attempts  and  the 
answer  to  the  question  in  his  own  mind  whether  he  could  or  could 
not  write  a  drama. 

The  essay  is  a  clear  exposition  of  the  difference  between  lyric, 
epic,  and  dramatic  talent.  Heine  sees  plainly  that  poets  who  are 
masters  of  the  lyric  often  accomplish  nothing  worth  while  in  the 
epic  or  dramatic.  He  takes  us  into  the  workshop  of  each  class 
of  poets  and  shows  how  the  dramatic  poet  must  have  a  purely  ob- 
jective view  of  his  material,  while  with  the  epic  poet  the  subjective 
element  may  enter  to  a  slight  extent,  even  the  Odyssey  and  the 
Nibelungenlied  not  being  entirely  free  from  it.  The  drama,  on  the 
other  hand,  offers  no  chance  for  the  author  to  project  himself  into 
his  work:  it  must  be  purely  objective.  This  explains  why  so 
many  poets  go  over  with  success  from  the  province  of  the  lyric  to 
that  of  the  epic,  since  they  do  not  need  to  renounce  utterly  their 
subjectivity  but  may  gradually  accustom  themselves  to  objectivity 
by  attempts  at  romance,  elegy,  and  novel,  where  the  two  forms  are 
mixed.  In  case  of  the  drama,  however,  the  strictest  suppression 
of  all  subjectivity  is  demanded,  as  there  is  no  transitional  form 
between  the  purely  lyric  and  the  dramatic :  the  personal  connec- 
tion is  entirely  severed. 

59 


After  so  clearly  analyzing  for  us  the  nature  of  the  different 
poetic  temperaments,  Heine  went  to  work  and  wrote  a  drama  more 
subjective  than  his  "  Almansor/ '  set  forth  even  more  passionately 
his  agony  of  love  and  his  murderous  hatred  of  his  favored  rival 
(Amalie  Heine,  his  cousin,  had  married  in  1821) :  and,  what  is 
more,  the  author  cherished  a  far  better  opinion  of  it  than  of 
"  Almansor,"  apparently  for  the  very  reason  of  its  purely  subjec- 
tive nature.  He  believed,  too,  that  he  had  avoided  the  mistake 
of  being  too  wordy,  and  repeatedly  expressed  the  faith  that  it  could 
be  acted.  It  is  true,  the  ideas  are  more  concentrated  and  more 
forcibly  presented,  but  the  suspense  is  pathological,  the  action 
halting,  and  there  is  again  no  real  characterization.  Nothing 
shows  a  poet's  hopelessness  in  the  dramatic  field  better  than  the 
lack  of  ability  to  create  characters,  and  here  Heine's  theories  and 
practice  are  in  strange  contrast;  for  he  says  in  this  same  essay: 
"The  drama  presupposes  a  stage,  not  where  somebody  sits  and 
"recites  the  piece,  but  where  the  heroes  of  the  poem  appear  in 
"person  and  speak  and  act  together  in  their  roles.  Here  it  is 
"  essential  that  the  poet  merely  note  down  what  they  say  and  how 
"  they  act.  Woe  to  the  poet,  however,  who  forgets  that  thess 
"  living  impersonators  of  heroes  have  the  right  to  group  themselves 
"and  make  faces  according  to  their  own  free  choice,  that  the 
"  theatre  costumer  looks  out  for  pretty  costumes,  the  scene  painter 
"  for  pretty  environment,  the  conductor  of  the  orchestra  for  vague 
"Romantic  feelings,  and  the  lamp-lighters  for  clear  illumination. 
''That  never  enters  the  epic  poet's  head;  and  when  he  attempts 
"drama,  he  becomes  entangled  in  beautiful  counter-descriptions, 
"delineation  of  character,  and  too  fine  shadings.  Finally,  the 
"drama  permits  no  lull  in  the  action,  no  scenes  of  simultaneous 
"action,  still  less  of  retrospection,  like  the  epic.  The  chief 
"  characteristic  of  the  drama,  then,  is  a  steady  advancement  of  the 
"plot  and  a  harmonious  working  together  of  dialog  and  action.' ' 

In  "  Almansor' '  some  of  the  same  faults  are  apparent :  the 
action  is  no  less  halting;  the  chorus  is  unnecessary  and  foolish,  and 
epic  elements  enter,  in  that  the  poet  explains  instead  of  making 
the  characters  speak.  Although  there  is  some  individualization, 
there  is  no  really  vigorous  characterization;  nor  is  there  any  tragic 
guilt  present:  the  material  in  both  cases  is  more  sad  than  tragic. 
In  "  Almansor' '  the  hero  is  weak,  passive,  and  lacking  in  virility, 
the  love  plot  is  tame  and  flat.  On  the  whole,  it  is  the  lyrical  ele- 
ment that  predominates,  while  "  Ratcliffe' '  takes  a  step  in  advance 
through  its  more  vigorous  dialog  and  the  consequent  decrease 
in  the  amount  of  lyric. 

60 


In  general,  we  may  say  that  Heine's  preference  for  the  sub- 
jective drama  and  his  overestimation  of  the  imaginative  element, 
which  was  his  inheritance  from  Schlegel  and  the  Romanticists, 
were  additional  grounds  for  his  admiration  of  Immermann's 
turgid  "youthful  failures,"  as  they  have  aptly  been  called.  His 
delight  over  "Tassos  Tod,"  which  made  it  difficult  for  him  to 
judge  the  drama  according  to  the  cold  rules  of  dramatic  art,  and 
his  pleasure  in  the  shallow  works  of  Steinmann  are  indications  of 
the  same  predilection.  Such  is  his  blindness  to  the  faults  of  the 
former,  that  he  excused  the  lack  of  the  unities  of  time  and  place 
and  even  of  interest,  because  the  last  was  replaC':^d  by  the  unity, 
of  feeling — ^that  quality  which  banishes  from  the  lips  of  the  specta- 
tor or  reader  the  question  "  Why?' '  and  makes  him  feel  in  harmony 
with  the  outcome,  whatever  it  is.  To  this  same  prejudice  we  must 
also  attribute  his  blindness  to  the  classic  drama  of  Grillparzer 
and  his  admiration  of  much  that  seems  to  us  unworthy. 


But  even  more  than  the  dramas  of  Immermann  themselves, 
Heine  admired  the  dramatic  talent  of  the  man,  which  enabled 
him  to  accomplish  with  comparative  ease  what  he  himself  could 
not  do,  shut  out  as  he  was  from  the  whole  field  of  history,  epic, 
and  dr  ma  by  his  subjective  type  of  mind.  The  thing  he  most 
longed  for  was  to  write  a  good  drama  and  the  man  that  could  do 
this  was  the  object  of  his  envy.  How  intense  was  this  desire  to 
see  a  work  of  his  put  on  the  stage,  a  few  extracts  from  Heine's 
letters  will  show. 

To  Steinmann  he  writes  Oct.  29,  1820 :  "  I  have  just  finished 
"except  for  a  few  lines  the  third  act  of  my  tragedy  'Almansor.' 
"  That  was  the  hardest  and  longest  act.  I  hope  to  finish  the  other 
"  two  also  this  winter.  Even  if  the  play  does  fail  to  please,  it  will 
"  at  least  create  a  great  sensation.  Into  this  work  I  have  put  my 
"own  self,  together  with  my  paradoxes,  my  wisdom,  my  love, 
"my  hate,  and  all  my  madness  *  *  *  It  will  surely  be  put  on 
"the  stage — ^it  matters  not  when.  The  play  has  cost  me  enough 
"  exertion,  and  to  speak  plainly,  I  am  almost  beginning  to  think 
"  that  it  is  harder  to  write  a  good  tragedy  than  to  be  a  good  swords- 
"  man  (We  recall  that  Heine  never  succeeded  in  learning  the  art 
"  of  fencing.)  although  in  a  duel  you  have  to  make  twelve  rounds 
^'  and  in  a  tragedy  only  five.  I  have  held  perfectly  to  the  rules  of 
"Aristotle  and  conscientiously  accepted  his  dueling  ground  in 
""  respect  to  place,  time,  and  action.  And  also  I  have  further  sought 
"to  put  some  poetry  into  my  tragedy."     And  it  is  only  too  true 

61 


that  he  himself  is  in  the  work :  all  the  pain  of  the  last  years,  the 
anguish  over  the  loss  of  Amalie,  his  Jewish  aversion  to  Christianity, 
and  his  bitterness  over  his  persecution — all  is  compressed  into  these 
few  short  acts. 

Again  to  Steinmann  (Feb.  4,  1821),  he  writes  of  "  Almansor": 
"I  have  worked  on  it  with  the  expenditure  of  all  my  energy, 
"spared  neither  heart's  blood  nor  sweat  of  brow,  have  finished 
"  it  except  for  half  an  act,  and  to  my  horror  I  find  that  this  splendid 
"  work,  which  I  myself  have  gazed  wonderingly  upon  and  idealized, 
"  not  only  is  not  a  good  tragedy,  but  does  not  even  deserve  the  name 
"  of  tragedy.*  *  *  A  tragedy  must  be  drastic  and  that  is  the  death- 
"  sentence  of  mine.  Have  I  no  dramatic  talent?  Easily  possible. 
"Or  have  the  French  tragedies,  which  I  once  greatly  admired, 
"unconsciously  exerted  their  old  influence?  This  latter  is  some- 
"  what  more  probable.  Just  think,  in  my  tragedy  all  three  unities 
"are  most  conscientiously  observed,  usually  only  four  characters 
"speak,  and  the  dialog  is  nearly  as  select,  polished,  and  rounded 
"  off  as  in  the  Thedre'  or  'Zaire.'  You  are  surprised?  The  riddle 
"  is  easily  solved :  I  have  tried  aiso  in  the  drama  to  unite  Roman- 
"tic  spirit  with  strictly  plastic  form."  Thus  the  belief  that 
"Almansor"  embodied  his  theories  concerning  the  necessity  of 
combining  romantic  content  and  plasticity,  is  expressed  here  before 
he  wrote  his  essay  on  "  Die  Romantik.' ' 

Once  more  to  Steinmann  (April  10,  1823)  he  writes:  "My 
"  tragedies  have  just  left  the  press.  I  know  they  will  be  all  pulled 
"  to  pieces,  but  I  will  tell  you  in  confidence :  they  are  very  good, 
"  better  than  my  collection  of  poems,  which  is  not  worth  a  charge 
"of  powder." 

To  Immermann  the  same  day  Heine  says  that  "Ratcliffe" 
contains  a  principal  confession  and  he  has  the  fancy  for  believing 
that  Immermann  belongs  to  the  small  number  of  those  who  will 
understand  it.  He  therefore  begs  his  friend  to  read  it  in  a  pro- 
pitious hour  and  without  interruption.  "I  am  convinced  of  the 
"value  of  this  poem  (hear!  hear!)  for  it  (the  poem)  is  true,  or  I 
"myself  am  a  lie;  everything  else  that  I  have  written  or  am  still 
"writing  may  perish  and  will  perish." 

May  4, 1823,  Heine  sends  the  tragedies  to  Maximilian  Schottky, 
the  author  and  critic,  with  the  request  that  he  or  his  friends  bring 
them  before  the  Viennese  public  by  a  critical  review  in  the  "  Wiener 
Jahrbiicher."  He  has  written  "William  Ratcliffe"  for  the  stage, 
and  he  believes  that  a  discussion  of  it  may  stimulate  some  theatrical 
management  or  other  to  accept  it.     The  dedicatory  lines  to  Chris- 


62 


tiani,  his  new  friend  in  Liineburg,  give  evidence  of  Heine's  exagger- 
ated idea  of  its  value : 

"  Ich  und  mein  Name  werden  untergehen, 
Doch  dieses  Lied  muss  ewiglich  bestehen." 

In  comparison  with  "  Ratcliffe/ '  ^^Almansor"  now  seemed  mild  to 
him.  The  following  verses  to  Friedrich  Merckel,  the  young  Ham- 
burg merchant,  show  his  preference  for  his  latest  creation : 

"  Ich  habe  die  siisse  Liebe  gesucht, 
Und  hab'  den  bittern  Hass  gefunden, 
Ich  habe  geseufzt,  ich  habe  geflucht, 
Ich  habe  geblutet  aus  tausend  Wunden. 

Auch  hab'  ich  mich  ehrlich  Tag  und  Nacht 
Mit  Lumpengesindel  herum  getrieben, 
Und  als  ich  all  diese  Studien  gemacht, 
Da  hab'  ich  ruhig  den  Ratcliffe  geschrieben' ' 

When  we  know  what  pride  Heine  had  in  his  dramas,  what 
hopes  and  fears  he  entertained  for  them,  we  can  imagine  his  bitter 
disappointment  at  their  failure  as  stage  pieces.  To  Gobitz  he 
writes  (Oct.  21,  1823),  "I  cannot  repeat  to  you  often  enough 
"that  everything  you  do  to  make  my  tragedies  known  will  be 
"requitted  to  you  in  heaven";  and  to  Moser,  Oct.  28, 1823:  "For 
''heaven's  sake,  are  you  serious  in  the  statement  that  'Ratcliffe' 
"is  to  be  put  on  the  stage?  Give  me  assurance!  Wouldn't  I  be 
"  happj^  if  this  succeeds!' ' 

It  was  a  long  while  before  the  poet  ceased  to  hope  that  the 
tragedies  would  be  acted,  but  "Ratcliffe"  never  was  performed 
in  Germany,  and  "  Almansor' '  was  hissed  off  the  stage  in  Braun- 
schweig, where  Klingmann  had  his  adaptation  of  it  presented.  This 
unpopularity  was  due  not  so  much  to  the  theatrical  weakness  of  the 
piece  and  to  the  hostility  aroused  by  the  bitter  religious  views,  as 
to  mistaken  identity,  the  audience  believing  that  in  the  author, 
the  Jew  Heine,  they  recognized  a  much  disliked  Braunschweig 
money-lender  of  that  name.    (Strodtmann  Vol.  I.  p.  273.) 

In  the  summer  of  1823,  at  the  very  time  of  the  failure  of 
"Almansor,"  the  plan  of  a  Venetian  tragedy  was  engaging  Heine's 
attention,  and  June  26,  1823,  he  writes  Lehmann  from  Liineburg: 
"A  whole,  new,  five-act  tragedy,  certainly  original  in  every 
respect,  stands  vague  and  yet  in  its  chief  outlines  before  me." 

63 


Two  months  later  he  reports  to  Moser  from  Cuxhaven:  "The 
"tragedy  is  worked  out  in  my  mind,  and  I  shall  apply  myself  to 
"  writing  it  down,  as  soon  as  I  have  peace  and  can  do  so.  It  will 
"  be  very  deep  and  sombre — ^nature  mysticism.  Do  you  not  know 
"  where  I  can  read  something  about  love-spells,  magic  in  general? 
"You  see,  I  have  an  old  Italian  woman  to  portray,who  practices 
"  sorcery.  I  am  reading  a  good  deal  on  Italy.  Have  me  in  mind 
"  if  you  come  across  anything  that  concerns  Venice,  especially  the 
"Venetian  carnival." 

The  news  of  the  ill-success  of  "  Almansor' '  no  doubt  disheart- 
ened the  poet,  for  we  hear  no  more  of  his  Venetian  tragedy  until 
two  months  later,  when  he  again  reminds  Moser  to  remember  the 
information  about  love-spells.  Through  the  diary  of  his  friend 
Dr.  Edward  Wedekind,  we  know  that  the  plan  was  still  occupying 
Heine  the  next  year.     (Karpeles,  Heine,  1899,  p.  83.) 

We  recall  also  Heine's  famous  remark  to  Goethe,  to  the  effect 
that  he  was  busying  himself  with  a  "  Faust.' '  Be  this  true  or 
false,  he  surely  told  his  Berlin  friends  that  he  was  at  work  on  a 
"Faust,"  and  for  two  years  we  hear  this  from  one  or  another. 
Wedekind  mentions  it  and  Heine  himself  in  letters  to  Merckel  and 
to  Varnhagen,  for  whom  he  claimed  to  be  writing  it.  But  the  plan, 
if  ever  entertained,  was  given  up  and  in  1847  his  Ballet-poem 
under  that  title  appeared — ^the  nearest  approach  that  Heine  ever 
made  to  another  drama.  Later  in  life,  however,  the  desire  still 
pursued  him.     Heinrich  Laube,  who  knew  Heine  in  Paris,  reports : 

"  In  conversation  with  him  I  often  noticed  with  astonishment 
"  what  a  sympathy  for  dramatic  form  he  displayed,  how  he  pos- 
"  itively  yearned  to  be  able  to  write  a  piece  that  would  be  played. 
*  ^He  tortured  me  with  the  repeated  question  whether  his  '  Alman- 
"sor'  and  'Ratcliffe'  were  really  then  not  acting  dramas.  To 
"  me  this  longing  for  dramatic  form  was  a  curious  sign,  a  sign  that 
"at  bottom  his  genius  was  dramatic.  He  lacked  calm  force, 
"justness  of  mind,  and  patience  in  renunciation  of  personal 
"  desires;  he  used  up  his  dramatic  talent  for  monologs  *  *  *  '' 
Theodor  Mundt  has  a  similar  longing  of  Heine's  to  report,  so  that 
we  know  that  as  late  as  the  thirties  and  forties  the  idea  of  writing 
for  the  stage  still  haunted  him. 

How  can  we  doubt,  then,  that  Heine's  intense  desire  for  dra- 
matic expression  was  an  important  factor  in  exciting  his  interest 
in  the  dramatist  Immermann — an  interest  that  could  only  increase 
as  he  observed  the  apparent  ease  and  rapidity  with  which  Immer- 
mann brought  forth  new  works?  On  the  other  hand,  can  we  fail 
to  see  what  attraction  a  lyrist  like  Heine  would  have  for  a  poet 

64 


who  was  still  struggling  with  lyric  forms  and  seeking  adequate 
expression  for  his  fullness  of  thought?  For  Immermann  was  not 
a  lyric  poet.  He  did  not  yet  know  wherein  his  strength  consisted, 
as  Heine  writes  to  Christiani  in  May  1824,  while  Heine  himself 
was  at  the  height  of  his  powers  and  independent  from  the  very 
start.  This  gave  him  in  the  field  of  poetry  a  decided  advantage 
over  his  friend,  whose  attempts  to  utter  his  subjective  feelings 
resulted  in  a  clumsiness  of  form  that  is  pitiful,  when  we  consider  the 
richness  of  the  soul  life  beneath  this  outer  covering  of  ponderous 
diction  and  halting  rhythm.  Heine's  sensitive  ear  was  offended 
by  the  strangeness  of  the  form,  and  though  he  liked  the  "  Elegien,' ' 
he  said  that  he  had  much  to  criticize  concerning  the  metre.  Imita- 
tion of  the  antique  verse  had  always  been  repugnant  to  him,  and 
since  he  himself  had  never  been  able  to  write  six  lines  of  it,  he  felt 
that  he  could  speak  thus  frankly  to  Immermann  without  giving 
offence.  Moreover,  Heine's  musical  sense  remained  completely 
unsatisfied,  for  Immermann  was  not  musically  attuned.  In  his 
lyrics  there  are  no  melodious  succession  of  tones — no  tender, 
melting  harmonies,  but  rather  dissonant  chords  and  harsh 
uneven  measures.  Richard  M.  Meyer  gives  an  example  of  one 
fearful  verse,  which  would  hardly  have  escaped  a  true  lyrist. 
("  Gedachtnisschrift'  [  p.  48) : 

"Lass  uns  die  Lippen  zum  Knoten  der  Wonne  verschiirzen." 
(Poem'^AmTos.") 

His  poems  lacked  grace  (Anmut),  a  quality  more  French 
than  German,  which  gives  such  charm  to  all  that  Heine  has  written, 
both  poetry  and  prose.  And  one  more  quality  Immermann  lacked, 
which  Heine  possessed  in  the  highest  degree:  taste — ^that  fine, 
selective  faculty,  which  tested  every  word  and  every  turn,  until 
finally  the  most  significant  expression  of  the  idea,  the  most  insinua- 
ting rhythm  and  verse-melody  was  found. 

Now  Immermann  received  little  encouragement  for  his  lyrical 
productions,  and  for  this  reason  he  became  afflicted  with  a  sad 
and  morbid  self-conceit,  peculiar  to  the  times.  He  said  himself 
that  if  a  poet  does  not  find  readers  and  hearers  to  make  his  work 
live,  he  will  lose  himself  all  too  easily  in  solitude,  and  in  the  end 
find  a  poor  compensation  in  gloomy  self-glorification.  The  con- 
trast between  his  lack  of  recognition  and  Heine's  immediate  popu- 
larity must  have  impressed  itself  forcibly  upon  him,  and  he  sought 
to  discover  the  reason  why  Heine  seemed  a  being  of  a  new  order. 
Through  his  criticism  of  the  first  volume  of  the  "  Reisebilder" 
Immermann  showed  that  he  distinguished  in  Heine  the  essentially 

65 


lyrical  genius  and  could  appreciate  it;  but,  though  he  tried  all  his 
life  to  attain  superiority  in  this  field,  it  was  only  seldom  that  inner 
necessity  drove  him  to  lyric  utterance,  and  for  this  reason  the 
results  are  labored  and  betray  the  effort  that  it  cost  the  poet  to 
produce  them.  March  14,  1830,  Heine  writes  Immermann  to 
thank  him  for  the  lyrical  collection  received  from  his  friend  and 
expresses  much  admiration  for  a  great  part  of  the  poems  in  so  far 
as  the  poetry  is  concerned.  "Die  Wiege  des  Konigs  von  Rom" 
he  calls  "  superb,' '  the  elegies  "  splendid' '  (in  all  probability  because 
the  satire  on  current  political  history  pleased  him) ;  but  there  are 
material  faults  again,  and  he  finds  it  difficult  to  criticize  the  poems 
individually;  he  marvels  at  Immermann's  productivity  in  general 
and  encourages  him  to  keep  on  with  his  dramatic  works,  writing 
without  reference  to  the  stage  and  leaving  the  work  of  adaptation 
for  the  stage  to  those  who  understand  the  business — ^then  things 
will  go  better.  These  seem  to  be  Heine's  last  comments  upon 
Immermann's  lyrical  works.  The  next  collection  was  the  charm- 
ing little  "  Friihlings-Kapriccio"  of  1833,  which  two  years  later 
was  embodied  in  Immermann's  final  collection  of  poems,  which  he 
selected  with  great  care  from  those  of  1822  and  1830. 

Another  consideration  must  not  be  overlooked  in  this  literary 
relationship :  the  fact  that  the  two  poets  were  not  rivals  and  never 
conflicted  in  their  separate  fields.  Immermann,  through  lack  of 
appreciation  from  without,  came  to  hold  himself,  as  I  have  said, 
better  and  higher  than  his  contemporaries  would  concede  him  to  be, 
and  for  the  failure  of  his  dramas  as  stage  plays,  he  blamed  not  him- 
self, but  the  times.  So  long  as  he  chose  the  best  models  and  imi- 
tated them,  he  believed  that  he  could  count  on  the  approval  of  the 
best  critics.  This  he  did,  and  when  the  praise  was  not  forth- 
coming, it  was  the  fault  of  the  age :  the  dramas  were  good.  A  like 
confidence  in  his  own  superior  talents  inspired  Heine.  He  never 
doubted  that  in  the  field  of  the  lyric  he  was  supreme.  The  very 
adjectives  with  which  he  everywhere  characterized  his  poems 
prove  this,  in  spite  of  an  occasional  prophecy  that  they  would  soon 
be  forgotten.  He  knew  that  they  were  fresh  and  original,  full 
of  music,  popular  in  tone,  like  those  of  Wilhelm  Miiller,  which  he 
so  sincerely  admired.  From  his  Bonn  days,  when  he  was  in  the 
midst  of  a  perfect  hotbed  of  poets — Simrock,  Rousseau,  von  Beug- 
hem,  Steinmann,  and  Neunzig — ^Heine  realized  the  greater  worth 
of  his  own  productions,  though  he  found  pleasure  in  the  works  of 
his  friends  and  even  called  Rousseau  an  excellent  poet  worthy  of 
the  laurel.  And  again  in  Berlin  he  triumphed  over  all  his  literary 
friends.     So  convinced  was  he  of  the  supremacy  of  his  genius, 

66 


that  it  mattered  little  to  him  whether  his  poetic  satellites  of  those 
days  continued  to  revolve  about  him  or  traveled  in  new  orbits 
round  that  lesser  luminary  Grabbe;  he  could  laugh  at  them  all. 
And  when  he  failed  to  receive  all  that  he  believed  his  due,  it  was 
to  the  unfeeling  times,  again,  that  he  attributed  the  cause. 

It  was  therefore  not  with  reference  to  Immermann's  lyrics 
that  Heine  wrote  those  appreciative  words  occurring  in  his  very 
first  letter:  "Fools  are  of  the  opinion  that  on  account  of  the 
"  Westphalian  points  of  contact,  (you  have  been  thought  a  West- . 
"  phalian  up  to  this  time)  I  should  have  to  compete  with  you,  and 
''they  do  not  know  that  the  beautiful  diamond  sparkling  so  brightly 
"can  not  be  compared  with  the  dark  stone,  which  is  merely  curiously 
"  formed  and  out  of  which  the  hammer  of  Time  strikes  wild,  angry 
"sparks.  But  why  concern  ourselves  with  fools?  From  me  you 
"will  always  hear  the  confession,  how  unworthy  I  am  to  be  named 
"beside  you."  We  have  seen  that  Heine  did  not  care  for  the 
lyrics,  but  rather  was  he  attracted  by  the  dramatic  ability  of  the 
man,  and  hence  the  homage.  Had  the  provinces  of  the  two  poets 
not  been  so  distinct  that  each  was  secure  against  the  encroachments 
of  the  other,  a  competition  for  mastery  of  the  field  would  in  all 
probability  have  followed  and,  instead  of  friendship,  antagonism 
might  have  resulted:  or  the  poets  might  simply  have  ignored 
each  other.  But  it  does  not  profit  to  think  what  might  have  been; 
the  interesting  fact  remains  that  each  felt  himself  master  of  his  own 
province  and  this  feeling  was  respected  and  encouraged  by  the 
other,  so  that  there  was  never  any  cause  for  conflict  or  jealousy. 

Heine's  realization  of  his  own  failure  as  a  dramatist  could 
only  increase  his  respect  for  Immermann's  talent.  He  looked 
forward  to  the  appearance  of  Immermann's  "Periander"  most 
hopefully,  not  doubting  that  the  one  fault  of  his  first  tragedies 
would  here  be  overcome:  namely,  the  tendency  to  wordiness. 
But  in  this  he  was  disappointed.  In  the  first  place,  the  tragedy- 
was  a  failure  from  the  point  of  view  of  construction.  The  exposi- 
tion scenes  are  lacking,  the  speeches  too  long  drawn  out;  contra- 
dictions and  cases  of  poor  motivation  are  numerous,  and  wordy 
descriptions  impede  the  progress  of  the  action.  There  is  a  wild 
confusion  of  most  glaringly  contrasted  elements;  the  theme — the 
destruction  of  a  whole  race  as  a  consequence  of  a  crime  committed 
by  the  head  of  the  family — is  antique  and  also  a  favorable  motive 
of  the  fate-drama,  except  that  there  is  no  connection  of  the  fate 
with  any  particular  day  or  object.  Periander,  King  of  Corinth, 
has  murdered  his  innocent  wife  because  of  jealousy.  In  spite  of 
his  immediate  repentance,   he  cannot  avert  the  consequences: 

67 


his  children  turn  from  him  and  he  dies  alone  and  unloved.  The 
tragic  lies  in  the  unfulfillment  of  his  longing  for  love,  and  the  work 
is  a  product  of  the  over-wrought  condition  of  Immermann's  own 
mind  through  his  passion  for  Elise  von  Liitzow.  The  fault  of  divided 
interest  works  against  any  distinct  sense  of  harmony  and  satisfac- 
tion at  the  end,  but  the  subjective  tone  and  the  strength  that  is 
everywhere  apparent  would  make  their  usual  appeal  to  Heine. 
Strength,  Heine  could  admire  everywhere,  for  it  was  a  quality 
less  marked  in  his  own  lyrical  nature,  and  this  characteristic  of  all 
Immermann's  writings  took  the  place,  in  the  estimation  of  the 
youthful  Heine,  of  a  certain  lack  of  artistic  sense  and  good  taste. 
As  yet  Heine  had  no  settled  criteria.  The  fate-drama  was  still 
rampant  and  he  composed  his  own  "  Ratcliff e' '  under  its  influence. 
In  fact,  he  writes  to  Adolf  Mullner  (Dec.  30,  1821)  that  the  latter's 
"  Schuld' '  was  once  his  favorite  book,  and  that  if  he  has  become  a 
poet,  it  is  due  to  that  work  (The  play  on  the  double  meaning  of 
the  word  "Schuld"  is  of  course  lost  in  translation.)  Nevertheless, 
"Periander"  did  not  fulfill  Heine's  expectations  and  he  calls  it 
"the  poorest  masterpiece"  that  he  knows  (Letter  to  Ludwig 
Robert,  Nov.  27,  1823,)  while  to  Moser  he  writes  (Sept.  30,  1823) : 
"It  is  a  most  remarkable  production.  I  can  not  pass  judgment 
"on  it.  I  can  see  that  it  contains  charmingly  beautiful  details, 
''but  whether  the  whole  is  a  clever  fusion  of  the  antique  with  the 
''modern,  or  merely  an  unsuccessful  kneading  together  of  Sophocles 
"and  Shakespeare —  I  do  not  know.  There  are  purely  antique  and 
"purely  modern  forms  placed  alongside  each  other — genuinely 
"antique  spirit  is  often  manifest — ^but  I  will  rather  hear  first  what 
"others  say." 

Just  before  Heine's  visit  to  Immermann,  the  latter's  comedy, 
"  Das  Auge  der  Liebe' '  had  gone  to  press.  As  soon  as  Heine  read 
it,  he  reported  the  fact  to  Moser  (Oct.  25,  1824)  adding:  "If 
one  reads  it  with  its  title,  it  is  pleasing,  otherwise  not;  there  is 
much  in  it  that  is  fine,  however." 

Four  months  later  (Feb.  24,  1825)  he  writes  to  the  author, 
to  thank  him  for  his  letter  and  latest  work.  He  tells  him  that  he 
found  the  book  awaiting  him  on  his  return  to  Gottingen  the  pre- 
ceding fall  from  his  foot-tour  in  the  Harz  Mountains,  from  the 
heights  of  which  he  had  seen  the  lofty  towers  of  Magdeburg  and 
thereby  thought  of  Immermann  and  his  towering  genius.  The 
poem  he  read  with  "  the  eye  of  love' ' — ^time  and  mood  were  both 
favorable — and  he  gave  himself  up  to  the  pure  enjoyment  of  it, 
rather  than  to  any  critical  examination,  finding  in  it  an  overflow 

68 


of  wit  and  an  abundance  of  real  poetry.  Yet  in  order  not  to  admire 
rashly  or  be  governed  by  predilection,  he  subjected  it  to  the  strict- 
est test  possible,  in  that  he  read  immediately  afterwards  Shake- 
speare's "  Midsummernight's  Dream,"  and  it  did  not  weaken  the 
impression  produced  by  Immermann's  poem.  This  comedy — ^the 
most  romantic  of  all  Immermann's  youthful  works — had  the  good 
fortune  to  appear  on  the  Berlin  stage  in  1828,  where  it  was  enthusi- 
astically received,  but  it  was  never  given  anywhere  else,  and  its 
popularity  was  shortlived.  Still,  the  fact  that  Heine  had  to  read 
it  with  the  eye  of  love  proves  that  it  failed  to  satisfy  him  complete- 
ly, in  spite  of  his  statement  to  Moser  (Feb.  24,  1825)  that  the  work 
surpassed  Platen's  comedies  in  wit  and  wealth  of  poetry. 

Another  work  of  Immermann's  mentioned  by  Heine  in  this 
same  letter  to  Moser  is  the  "Neuer  Pygmalion,"  a  short  story 
which  appeared  in  the  "  Taschenbuch  fiir  geselliges  Vergniigen"  for 
1825,  and  showed  a  decided  advance  over  the  "  Papierfenster" 
He  says : 

"  I  should  like  to  say  concerning  it  about  the  same  thing  that 
* 'the  mad  Englishman  on  the  stairway  in  Naples  said  of  'Werther,' 
''namely,  'I  do  not  like  the  book,  but  neither  do  I  understand  how 
''it  was  possible  to  write  it.'  Really,  I  do  not  care  for  this  tale,  I 
''am  even  hostile  to  this  type,  but  I  marvel  at  your  masterly  pre- 
"sentation  and  still  more  at  your  finished  prose." 

It  was  not  until  "Cardenio  and  Celinde"  appeared  in  1825 
that  Heine  found  himself  able  to  admire  unreservedly.  Upon 
reading  Varnhagen's  favorable  discussion  of  it,  he  was  beside  him- 
self with  joy.  "With  infinite  pleasure,  Herr  von  Varnhagen,  I 
*'  saw  how  you  have  estimated  in  the  'Gesellschafter'  Immermann's 
''Cardenio'and  I  am  glad  to  support  your  opinion  that  Immermann 
*'far  surpasses  all  his  contemporaries.  This  work  is  now  my  favorite 
"reading.  It  seems  to  me  as  if  I  had  written  it  myself."  (May 
14,  1826). 

To  Immermann  he  expresses  himself  even  more  jubilantly 
(Oct.  14,  1826),  saying  that  it  was  the  best  book  that  he  should 
wish  to  write;  that  it  had  all  his  own  fantastic  sickness  and  yet 
at  the  same  time  all  the  indestructible  health  of  Immermann; 
that  in  this  book  their  two  selves  had  met.  And  truly,  the  work 
was  almost  universally  recognized  as  the  powerful  expression  of  a 
mighty  talent,  however  grossly  its  inartistic  form,  its  crudeness,  its 
brutality,  even,  must  offend  the  esthetic  sense.  But,  as  we  have 
seen,  Heine  allowed  the  element  of  strength  to  take  the  place  of 
the  beautiful  in  dramas,  and  we  learn  that  as  late  as  1843  he 
enjoyed  and  greatly  praised  Hebbel's  "Judith,"  (Hebbel's  Diary, 

69 


Oct.  14,  1843)  admiring  especially  that  very  quality.  None  of 
Immermann's  works  so  stirred  Heine  to  the  depths  of  his  being 
as  did  this  one.  The  very  theme  of  disappointed  love,  the  force 
of  a  great  passion,  which  defies  with  over-powering  violence  all 
moral  principles,  the  insight  it  gives  into  the  soul  of  the  poet — this 
called  forth  all  Heine's  sympathy  and  he  felt  that  it  was  written 
with  the  heart's  blood  of  the  poet,  as  his  own  sorrows  had  been 
written. 

In  this  connection'  it  will  interest  us  to  see  how  Heine's  per- 
sonal preferences  disagree  with  the  theories  that  he  works  out 
abstractly  and  objectively  on  the  question  of  esthetics.  At  the 
end  of  the  essay  on  "  Tasso's  Tod' '  he  says  concerning  the  tendency 
of  the  modern  drama  to  present  on  the  stage  as  a  matter  of  course 
the  most  unspeakable  horrors :  "  Really,  it  is  revolting  to  see  how 
"in  our  recent  tragedies,  instead  of  the  truly  tragic,  there  has 
"arisen  a  butchering,  a  slaughtering,  a  lacerating  of  the  feelings; 
"  how  the  audience  sits  with  chattering  teeth  on  the  benches  of  the 
"condemned,  how  it  is  morally  broken  on  the  wheel,  from  the 
"lowest  to  the  highest.  Have, then, our  poets  entirely  forgotten 
"what  an  enormous  influence  the  theatre  exerts  upon  national 
"customs?  Have  they  forgotten  that  they  are  to  make  these 
"  customs  milder  and  not  wilder?  Have  they  forgotten  that  the 
"  drama  has  the  same  aim  as  poetry  in  general,  which  is  to  reconcile 
"not  stir  up  the  passions,  to  humanize,  not  brutalize?  Have  our 
"poets  completely  forgotten  that  poetry  in  itself  has  enough 
"  expedients  to  arouse  and  to  satisfy  even  the  most  obtuse  audience,, 
"without  parricide  or  incest?" 

In  considering  the  biographical  relations  of  the  poets,  I  men- 
tioned the  great  pleasure  experienced  by  Heine  from  the  "  Trauer- 
spiel  in  Tirol' '  and  the  beautiful  tribute  paid  the  author  after  the 
visit  to  the  scene  of  the  play.  Heine  did  not  praise  the  work  blindly, 
however,  but  writes  frankly  (Nov.  17, 1829)  after  seeing  a  presen- 
tation of  the  play  in  Hamburg : 

"Good  morning,  dear  Immermann!  I  have  nothing  to  say  to 
"  you  except  what  the  whole  world  knows,  that  last  evening  your 
"tragedy,  well-played  to  a  well-filled  house,  was  received  with 
"  the  most  appreciative  applause.  For  the  first  time  in  six  months 
"I  was  at  the  theatre,  in  the  company  of  dear  ladies,  whose  lips 
"looked  most  charming  as  they  pronounced  Immermann's  praise 
"  *  *  *  *  Your  'Friedrich'  I  read  with  delight.  I  like  it 
"  infinitely  better  than  'Hofer'  which,  however  highly  I  esteem  it, 
"  I  yet  care  for  least  of  all  your  works.  Last  evening,  to  be  sure, 
''it  pleased  me  better  than  on  the  occasion  of  my  reading  it;  when 

70 


*^  I  read  it,  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  it  were  written  in  a  state  of  morbidly 
"  low  spirits.  Last  evening  the  Tirolese  songs  were  very  effective 
^'during  the  distant  shooting  *  *  *  *  Xhe  last  act,  poeti- 
^'  cally  the  most  beautiful,  was  theatrically  the  weakest,  tip  to 
^'  the  next  to  the  last  act,  breathless  expectation  was  sustained  in 
^'the  audience — ^palpitating  suspense;  but  the  last  had  no  theatri- 
"cal  charm  and  a  hackneyed  ending.  It  therefore  made  less  of 
*^  an  appeal  than  the  earlier  acts.  I  will  read  the  work  again  now 
"  and  tell  you  more  about  it  next  time." 

In  his  next  letter,  probably  written  the  following  month, 
Heine  tries  to  forestall  any  discouragement  that  Immermann  may 
feel  on  hearing  reports  from  Hamburg,  by  telling  him  not  to  be- 
lieve the  correspondents  in  the  journals,  who  are  all  opposed  to  the 
piece;  they  attribute  enough  poetry  to  it,  but  for  that  very  reason 
they  declare  it  unfit  for  the  stage.  Heine  asserts,  on  the  contrary, 
that,  except  for  the  fifth  act,  it  was  received  with  great  approval, 
and  he  names  others  who  concur  with  him  in  this  opinion.  But 
in  his  preference  for  "  Kaiser  Friedrich  II' '  he  seems  to  have  agreed 
with  the  popular  sentiment,  for  this  drama  had  much  better  success 
than  the  "  Hofer,' '  being  given  in  Hamburg  four  times  in  nineteen 
days. 

So  far  I  have  shown  the  reasons  why  the  two  poets  were  attract- 
ed to  each  other  on  the  literary  side.  How  much  Heine's  judg- 
ment was  clouded  by  his  admiration  of  Immermann's  personality 
would  be  difficult  to  determine,  but  we  may  be  sure  that  the 
personal  qualities  of  the  man  influenced  to  a  large  extent  Heine's 
estimate  of  his  literary  ability.  From  Heine's  first  letter  it  is 
clear  that  he  was  impressed  by  Immermann's  robust  nature,  his 
broad-mindedness,  his  firm  conviction  of  the  difference  between 
right  and  wrong,  his  stability  of  character,  and  it  was  in  the  confi- 
dence that  Immermann  desired  to  see  the  right  prevail  that  he 
offered  himself  as  Waffenbruder.  The  fact  that  Ludwig  Robert 
showed  the  same  breadth  of  mind  delighted  Heine,  and  he  writes 
him  (Nov.  27, 1823)  that  this  freedom  from  narrow  mindedness  and 
prejudice  pleases  him  more  than  all  the  other  attributes  of  the  soul. 
All  of  Immermann's  works  were  additional  evidence  to  Heine  that 
he  had  not  been  mistaken  in  his  estimate  of  the  man,  and  none  in 
a  higher  degree  than  the  Pustkuchen  pamplets,  which  he  read  a 
second  time  and  declared  he  could  not  admire  enough.  Varn- 
hagen,  that  excellent  critic,  saw  through  Immermann's  works 
the  force  of  an  unusual  personality  and  after  reading  "Cardenio 
and  Celinde"  he  writes  to  the  poet  these  true  and  sympathetic 

71 


words:  "I  have  *  *  *  you  yourself  to  praise  more  than  your 
works;  your  works  all  together  more  than  any  one  of  them.'' 
It  was  the  man  that  won  Varnhagen's  respect.  To  him  Heine 
showed  the  Pustkuchen  pamphlets,  together  with  Immermann's 
letter,  after  which  he  writes  his  friend  (Jan.  14,  1823) :  "  In  order 
**to  give  you  pleasure  and  at  the  same  time  not  to  be  obliged  myself 
"  to  tell  you  my  opinion  of  the  two  pamphlets,  I  am  sending  you 
"the  letter  that  Varnhagen's  wife  wrote  on  the  subject  day  before 
"yesterday.  For  an  understanding  of  it,  I  will  merely  remark  that 
"among  the  letters  on  the  'Wanderjahre'  published  in  the  'Gesell- 
"schafter,'  of  which  Goethe  so  beautifully  expressed  his  apprecia- 
"  tion,  those  signed  '  Friedericke'  proceeded  from  the  pen  of  Frau 
"  von  Varnhagen  and  that  in  one  (it  is  the  first)  occur  several  ex- 
"pressions  in  the  same  tone  as  your  pamphlet  *  *  *  How 
"  Varnhagen  regards  your  critical  work  you  will  read  in  his  an- 
"  nouncement  in  the  'Gesellschafter.'  He  wishes  me  to  tell  you  that 
"  you  should  by  no  means  fail  to  send  a  copy  of  it  to  Goethe  and 
"to  Tieck."  His  deepest  regret  is,  that  he  cannot  be  a  volunteer 
in  the  campaign  against  Pustkuchen,  and  in  this  mood  he  ad- 
dresses his  friend  as  "wackerer  Immermann."  It  is  this  epithet 
(which  I  translate  "stout-hearted")  which  seems  particularly 
significant.  From  the  first  the  moral  courage  of  Immermann  in 
standing  alone  against  the  usurpations  of  a  powerful  student  organi- 
zation and  bearing  the  consequences  of  his  act  alone,  was  impressed 
upon  Heine  through  the  publications  concerning  the  "Teutonia." 
"  Your  little  book  on  duelling  has  shown  me  what  is  to  be  expected 
"of  you  in  the  great  struggle  against  licensed  absurdities.  I 
•'lack  courage  for  such  deeds,  and  I  reconcile  to  myself  and  excuse 
"  my  faint-heartedness  with  the  fine  considerations  that  in  my  case 
"so  much  can  be  misinterpreted,  etc."  Then  the  Pustkuchen 
works  strengthened  his  faith  in  Immermann's  fearlessness  and 
sense  of  right,  which  allowed  him  to  shirk  no  duty,  however  disa- 
greeable the  consequences.  He  saw  in  his  friend  the  future  diplo- 
mat, and  offers  to  help  him  after  he  is  himself  once  in  Paris  and  has 
seen  what  the  conditions  are;  he  rejoices  in  the  prospect  of  helping 
to  broaden  the  sphere  of  activity  of  a  man  from  whose  ability  he 
expects  so  much.     (Apr.  10,  1823.) 

Moreover,  the  very  form  and  contents  of  Immermann's 
pamphlets  in  support  of  Goethe  delighted  Heine,  for  he  did  love 
polemic  above  all  things  and  Immermann's  use  of  it  was  both 
effective  and  ingenious,  as  he  wrote  in  the  same  form  that  Goethe 
himself  used  for  scourging  Leuchsenring :  namely,  the  Hans  Sachs 
carnival  play,  giving  to  the  hero  the  same  name  also — Peter  Brey. 

72 


The  other  pamphlet — "Brief  an  einen  Freund"  was  of  a 
different  sort,  being  rather  an  esthetic  treatise  dealing  with  the 
genesis  of  a  work  of  art,  but  at  the  same  time  giving  expression 
to  the  author's  deep  regard  for  Goethe  throughout.  The  little 
work  shows  that  Immermann  had  devoted  much  thought  to  the 
subject  and  had  come  to  the  conclusions  that  the  rules  for  artistic 
production  were  not  to  be  formulated  but  that  the  creative  talent 
was  the  only  law-giving  force  in  art.  Poetry  exists  for  its  own  sake : 
it  has  the  right  of  existence  in  itself.  And  as  the  poet  can  create 
only  in  a  tranquil  state,  so  will  his  works  be  a  joy  and  gratification 
only  to  the  tranquil.  The  calm,  serene  man  will  find  in  poetry 
the  gentle  solution  of  the  difficult  riddle  of  life. 

As  Heine  was  pondering  on  the  same  subjects  and  attempting 
to  formulate  his  own  esthetic  ideas,  this  treatise  must  have  meant 
much  more  to  him  than  merely  a  defence  of  a  great  genius.  Be- 
hind it,  too,  he  saw  again  the  personality  of  a  powerful,  mature 
thinker,  one  who  was  superior  to  him  in  ripeness  of  thought  and 
judgment,  if  inferior  in  his  ability  to  give  it  expression.  He  saw 
the  earnest  seeker  for  truth  and  beauty,  the  advocate  of  the  right, 
the  man  of  ideas  with  the  will  to  carry  out  his  ideas.  Altogether 
the  forcefulness  of  Immermann's  individuality  was  strikingly 
apparent  to  Heine,  whose  romantically  impressionable  nature 
perceived  readily  the  practical,  active  type  so  distinctly  its  opposite. 


"We  agree  admirably,  have  become  sincerely  fond  of  one 
another,"  writes  Heine  to  Christiani,  a  month  after  his  visit  to 
Immermann.  Had  this  friendship  other  foundations  besides  the 
common  literary  interests  of  the  two  poets  and  the  mutual  at- 
traction of  opposing  personalities?  No  doubt  the  most  absorbing 
topic  during  their  visit  was  their  literary  pursuits,  their  artistic 
endeavors,  and  esthetic  ideas;  but  for  various  reasons  one  other 
subject  could  scarcely  have  been  avoided — ^that  of 'politics,  since 
Heine  was  firmly  bent  on  leaving  Germany  and  going  to  Paris, 
and  Immermann  was  contemplating  the  same  step.  The  talk 
must  have  broadened  out  into  a  discussion  of  politics  in  general, 
of  German  and  French  conditions,  of  the  recent  wars  and  Napo- 
leon and  of  more  remote  events  in  the  political  history  of 
Germany.  Immermann  surely  made  acquaintance  with  Heine's 
revolutionary  views  and  the  ideals  for  which  he  stood,  while  Heine 
in  turn,  learned  of  Immermann's  participation  in  the  campaign 
and  of  his  liberal  sentiments.  Doubtless,  too,  they  rehearsed 
their  university  days  and  discussed  the  Burschenschaft  movement 

73 


and  the  part  they  had  played  in  the  attempt  to  reconstruct  Ger- 
many, and  in  the  end — they  agreed  admirably.  Heine  discovered 
more  in  the  man  than  he  had  expected  and  could  continue  to  call 
him  his  Waffenbruder,  for  in  his  very  first  publication  Immermann 
had  shown  himself  a  fighter,  and  a  fighter  he  remained  all  his  life. 
Whether  he  combatted  old  abuses  in  student  life  or  false  aims  in 
literature,  whether  the  preposterous  deceptions  of  a  Pustkuchen 
or  the  overweening  self-assumption  and  arrogance  of  rank  of  a 
Platen — he  fought  for  justice,  which  his  father  had  taught  him  to 
believe  in  as  the  highest  of  the  virtues.  Heine's  keen  insight, 
already  quickened  by  Immermann's  early  writings,  which  were  all 
interesting  documents  of  the  author's  personality,  now  recognized 
in  him  a  free  and  independent  being,  who  both  in  his  conviction 
and  in  his  actions  held  himself  apart  from  the  prevailing  views 
exactly  as  he  himself  did  in  his  struggle  for  the  realization  of  his 
"  Idea' ' — for  Heine,  too,  was  a  born  fighter,  never  once  yielding  the 
struggle  from  the  first  outbreak  of  the  fighting  mood  in  the  "  Fres- 
kosonette,' '  where  the  sharp  contrast  between  form  and  content 
expresses  so  well  the  disharmony  of  the  poet's  soul,  to  the  end  of  his 
life.  That  both  poets  were  ready  to  stand  for  their  convictions  is 
clear ;  the  question  is,  in  how  far  were  they  able  to  agree  politically 
— ^in  how  far  were  they  fighting  for  the  same  cause  as  confederates 
— Waff  enbriider  ? 

If  we  look  back  to  Heine's  student  days  at  Bonn,  we  shall 
find  what  may  surprise  us,  knowing  the  later  Heine  as  we  do. 
The  fall  of  1819  saw  him  for  the  first  time  enrolled  as  a  university 
student,  after  his  complete  failure  to  show  any  aptitude  for  the 
professions  chosen  for  him  by  his  mother.  That  winter  he  entered 
into  his  work  with  great  enthusiasm  and  his  professors  testified 
to  his  attentiveness  and  his  commendable  attendance  upon  their 
lectures.  The  courses  elected  by  him  the  next  two  semesters  are 
the  best  evidence  of  the  subjects  most  interesting  to  him  then.  In 
addition  to  the  lectures  on  the  Nibelungenlied  and  metrics,  he 
heard  Schlegel  also  on  the  history  of  the  German  Language  and 
Literature;  Hiillmann  on  the  History  of  Antiquity,  the  History 
of  Civilization,  Germanic  Civil  Law  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
French  History;  Arndt  on  the  History  of  the  German  People 
and  Kingdom,  and  on  Tacitus's  "de  Moribus  Germanorum"; 
and  Radloff  on  the  History  of  the  Primitive  Germans.  To  all 
these  studies  Heine  applied  himself  with  Romantic  enthusiasm  for 
everything  German,  which  reigned  here  as  at  all  the  universities. 
He  belonged  to  one  of  the  Burschenschaften  and  was  the  confessed 
adherent  of  its  views  and  aims.     He  probably  sang  Arndt's  well- 

74 


known  song  to  the  effect  that  all  Germany  is  the  German's  father- 
land with  as  much  feeling  as  any  other  student  and  wore  the  black- 
red-and-gold  with  just  as  much  pride.  On  the  anniversary  of 
Leipzig  he  took  part  in  a  celebration  held  by  the  students  in  the 
vicinity  of  Bonn  and  drank  a  health  to  Bliicher  and  German 
freedom,  and  even  after  the  strict  reactionary  measures  of  the 
Prussian  King  were  enforced  and  a  system  of  espionage  estab- 
lished, his  Burschenschaft  continued  to  meet  secretly  and  make 
most  revolutionary  plans.  But  Heine's  connection  with  this 
organization  ceases  to  surprise  us,  when  we  consider  the  nature 
of  its  aims,  which  were  so  Romantically  vague  and  hazy  that  they 
were  adapted  to  all  temperaments.  Conservatives  and  Liberals 
read  into  the  program  their  own  particular  ideals  and  associated 
on  equal  terms;  for  the  great  wave  of  patriotism  that  swept  over 
Germany  during  the  time  of  the  Napoleonic  wars,  caught  up  and 
bore  along  with  irresistible  force  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men, 
who  hoped  to  bring  about  through  the  Burschenschaften  the 
realization  of  their  dreams  of  freedom  and  unity.  Thus  for 
a  while  Heine  was  in  full  sympathy  with  his  fellows  in  the  great 
cause  of  German  nationality.  Inspired  by  the  same  sentiments 
that  filled  the  minds  of  the  enthusiastic  student  of  those  days,  he 
wrote  a  number  of  poems  in  the  prevailing  style  and  it  was  the 
most  natural  thing  in  the  world  that  he  should  have  imbibed  the 
patriotism  of  the  time,  for  the  air  was  full  of  it.  Rousseau's  poem 
on  "  Das  Lied  der  Nibelungen' '  is  evidence  of  the  enthusiasm  that 
was  inspired  in  the  hearts  of  the  youth  by  the  discovery  of  the 
literary  treasures  of  the  German  poet.  Apropos  of  this,  Heine 
writes  to  Steinmann  (Feb.  4,  1821) :  "  How  did  you  like  the  Poet's 
''poem  on  the  Nibelungen?  I  received  a  copy  of  it  a  few  days  ago 
"and  cannot  get  enough  of  it.  I  have  read  it  aloud  at  least  twenty 
"times  and  explained  its  beauties  with  a  mighty  critical  mien." 
Nevertheless,  this  Teutomism  was  a  current  that  became  upper- 
most in  Heine's  nature  for  only  a  short  time.  In  the  midst  of^  his 
enthusiasm  over  Bliicher  and  the  heroes  of  the  War  of  Liberation, 
he  could  write  his  Song  of  Songs, — "Die  Grenadiere" ;  the  Napoleon 
cult  was  the  strong,  deep  current  always,  and  the  former  soon 
disappeared  below  the  surface  again. 

The  change  came  during  the  next  year,  while  he  was  pur- 
suing his  studies  at  Gottingen,  which  he  entered  in  the  fall  of  1820, 
and  it  was  chiefly  due  to  two  causes.  First,  after  his  suspension 
from  the  university  through  violation  of  the  laws  of  duelling,  it 
was  also  made  clear  to  him  that  his  membership  was  no  longer 
desired  in  the  Burschenschaft,  because  of  rumors  concerning  his 

75 


laxity  of  morals.  From  this  time  he  lost  sympathy  with  its  aims, 
and  declares  in  the  "  Wintermachen' '  that  the  Old-German  fools 
in  the  Burschenschaft  spoiled  his  pleasure  in  the  black-red-and- 
gold  once  so  dear  to  his  heart.  Secondly,  he  had  already  come  to 
see  the  narrowness  of  its  patriotism  and  to  feel  an  aversion  to  the 
Burschen  because  of  their  strong  hostility  to  the  Jews  and  the 
French.  Their  views  began  to  seem  more  vague  and  fanatical 
to  him;  the  anti-Semitic  tendency  repelled  him  more  and  more, 
and  from  1822  on  we  constantly  run  across  passages  in  his  letters 
that  show  his  growing  aversion  to  Teutonism  and  its  heroes.  He 
lost  all  patience  with  the  narrowness  and  intolerance  of  so  limited 
a  nationalism,  and  so  in  April  1822  we  find  him  writing  that 
strange  letter  to  Sethe  announcing  the  end  of  their  friendship, 
since  Sethe  is  a  German.  "  The  German  language  grates  upon  my 
''ears.  My  own  poems  sometimes  disgust  me,  when  I  see  that  they 
"are  written  in  German.  Even  the  writing  of  this  note  bothers 
"me,  because  the  German  characters  have  a  painful  effect  upon 
"my  nerves.  (He  continues  in  French!)  I  should  never  have 
"believed  that  those  animals  called  Germans  could  be  a  race  at 
"  the  same  time  so  dull  and  so  malicious.  As  soon  as  my  health  is 
''restored,  I  shall  leave  Germany  and  go  to  Arabia  and  there  I  shall 
"lead  a  pastoral  life,  I  shall  be  a  man  in  the  full  meaning  of  the 
"word,  ^     *     *"     etc. 

By  the  time  Heine  reached  Berlin,  his  enthusiasm  for  the 
Burschenschaften  had  almost  entirely  disappeared  and  in  his 
"  Briefe  aus  Berlin' '  he  scores  the  sect-spirit  of  the  Teutons  whose 
love  of  freedom  was  based  on  hatred  of  the  French  and  on  national 
egoism.  From  this  time  forth  the  never-ending  ridicule  and 
mockery  directed  against  the  whole  party  of  so-called  patriots  won 
Heine  his  reputation  for  anti-national  sentiments.  Jahn,  the 
father  of  the  gymnastic  movement,  a  Teuton  and  hater  of  the 
French  is  a  cowardly,  foolish  fellow;  the  harmless  Massmann 
becomes  the  type  of  Old-German  demagog,  just  as  dangerous  as 
grotesque.  The  latter  Heine  conceived  a  perfect  mania  for  perse- 
cuting all  his  life;  from  the  "Reise  von  Miinchen  nach  Genua" 
through  "Atta  Troll"  the  " Wintermarchen"  and  the  "Roman- 
zero"  he  pursues  him  with  his  bitterest  ridicule.  Of  course  we 
realize  that  in  his  desire  to  make  the  "  Teutomaniacs"  appear 
absurd  he  went  too  far  and  laughed  at  real  patriotism  and^  the 
whole  epoch  of  the  War  of  Liberation,  causing  truly  patriotic 
feelings  to  seem  the  pose  of  intriguers  and  fools. 

But  Heine  was  not  hostile  to  Teutonism  in  the  best  sense  of 
the  word.     In   Gottingen,   he  showed  decided  interest  for  his 

76 


country's  past  by  studying  German  history  and  literature,  and 
was  aroused  to  indignation  by  the  fact  that  so  few  were  taking 
the  course  of  lectures  under  the  Germanic  scholar  Beneke.  "  Think 
of  it,"  he  writes  Steinmann  (Oct.  29,  1820)  "Hofrat  Beneke  is 
"the  only  one  here  who  lectures  on  German  Literature  and  has 
"  (horribile  dictu ! !)  only  9  (nine)  hearers.  Among  them  is  my 
"  humble  self.  If  Hundeshagen  is  going  to  lecture  on  the  Nibelun- 
"gen  next  summer,  that  might  probably  draw  me  back  to  Bonn." 
In  similar  words  he  makes  known  his  sentiments  to  Beughem 
(Nov.  9,  1820)  "  I  am  hearing  Beneke's  course  of  lectures  on  Old- 
"  German  Language  with  great  pleasure.  Think  of  it,  Fritz! 
"only  9  (nine)  student  are  taking  this  course.  Out  of  thirteen 
"  hundred  students,  among  whom  are  surely  a  thousand  Germans, 
'•'there  are  only  nine  who  have  any  interest  for  the  language,  for 
"the  inner  life,  for  the  intellectual  relics  of  their  fathers.  O  Ger- 
"many!     Land  of  oaks  and  stupidity!" 

Then  in  the  fall  of  1822  Heine  wrote  those  fine  words  at  the 
close  of  his  essay  "Ueber  Polen,"  in  which  he  glorifies  the  Middle 
Ages  of  Germany  and  encourages  efforts  to  revive  true  enthusiasm 
for  that  period.  "May  the  time  soon  come,  when  justice  shall 
"be  done  to  the  Middle  Ages,  when  no  silly  apostle  of  shallow 
"rationalism  will  make  an  inventory  of  the  dark  places  of  the 
"great  painting  in  order  to  compliment  thereby  his  dear  enlightened 
"  age;  when  the  learned  school-boy  will  not  draw  parallels  between 
"the  Cologne  Cathedal  and  the  Pantheon,  between  the  Nibel- 
"ungenlied  and  the  Odyssey,  when  the  splendors  of  the  Mid- 
"  die  Ages  shall  be  recognized  by  their  organic  connection  and 
"  compared  only  with  themselves,  when  the  Nibelungenlied  shall  be 
"  called  a  versified  cathedral  and  the  Cologne  Cathedral  a  stone 
"Nibelungenlied." 

To  the  Burse  hen,  however,  Heine  was  at  that  time  no  longer 
attracted  and  when  the  "Arminia"  was  dissolved  because  of 
opposition  to  the  government  in  its  struggle  against  liberal  tenden- 
cies, his  connection  with  the  organizations  was  severed  for  good. 
No  longer  able,  as  formerly,  to  unite  his  patriotic  Romantic  ideals 
with  his  more  progressive  views,  he  set  himself  the  task  of  combat- 
ting without  mercy  the  destructive  forces  of  the  past,  getting  fur- 
ther and  further  away  from  the  national  as  he  approached  the 
democratic. 

It  was  just  here  in  his  intolerance  of  all  narrowness,  in  his 
hatred  of  a  limited  nationalism  that  Heine  met  Immermann, 
for  the  latter  was  also  mature  enough  to  see  the  weaknesses  of  the 
whole  Burschenschaft  movement.     Even  the  gymnastic  associa- 

77 


tions  were  spoiled  for  Immermann  by  the  political  savour  that 
they  received  from  their  well-meaning  but  narrow-minded  leader. 
In  his  youth,  Immermann,  too,  had  burned  with  enthusiasm  for 
his  fatherland,  and  to  this  inspired  love  he  gave  poetic  expression. 
In  1812,  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  he  composed  a  poem  called  "  Das 
Vaterland"  and  the  War  of  Liberation  brought  forth  a  lyrical 
outburst  of  a  similar  national  content.  Yet  in  spite  of  this  ardent 
love  for  his  country,  he  went  his  way  independent  of  the  Burschen- 
schaften.  The  reason  for  his  attitude  is  not  difficult  to  formulate. 
All  the  natural  surroundings  of  his  childhood  and  youth  had  tended 
to  awaken  his  public  spirit  early,  broaden  his  views,  and  incline 
him  to  monarchical  sentiments  and  faith  in  the  Prussian  govern- 
ment. As  he  obeyed  his  father  implicitly  and  in  his  harsh  com- 
mands saw  only  love  and  authority  rightly  exercised,  so  he  learned 
to  respect  and  reverence  the  authority  of  the  State — to  trust  the 
wisdom  of  its  great  rulers  before  all  else.  Immermann's  own 
testimony  to  the  value  of  strict  home  discipline  is  beautifully 
expressed  in  the  "  Memorabilien" — ^the  last  paragraph  of  the 
section  entitled  "  Die  Familie' ' :  severe  training,  provided  it  pro- 
ceeds from  a  blamelessly  pure,  loving  personality,  capable  of  self- 
sacrifice  is  a  blessing  and  an  endowment  for  all  time  to  him  who 
obeys. 

In  the  "  Avisbrief ' '  of  the  "  Memorabilien' '  he  also  tells  of  his 
inquiring  disposition  as  a  child,  his  attentive  mind  and  powers  of 
observation,  which  helped  to  develop  him  in  advance  of  his 
associates,  so  that  when  he  finally  came  into  contact  with  the 
Burschenschaften,  their  aims,  in  comparison  with  those  of  the 
great  state,  seemed  most  vague  and  impracticable,  even  fanatical. 
He  was  mature  enough  to  perceive  the  dangers  that  are  always 
apt  to  attach  themselves  to  such  organizations,  because  of  the 
presence  of  extremists  with  their  inflammatory  speeches;  he  had 
too  much  practical  sense  to  be  carried  away  by  the  wild  schemes 
and  abstract  ideals  of  the  fiery  young  patriots,  who,  from  lack  of 
experience  and  tradition,  were  not  the  people  to  reconstruct  a 
state.  Brought  up  to  consider  the  Prussian  state  and  Prussianism 
as  the  most  mighty  and  sublime  conception,  he  was  repelled  by 
whatever  was  contrary  to  its  law  and  traditions,  so  that  on  the 
whole,  he  had  little  in  common  with  his  fellows.  All  their  "  Teuto- 
mania"  seemed  hollow  and  silly  to  him,  and  gradually  he  with- 
drew more  and  more  into  himself  and  kept  aloof  from  more  active 
participation  in  the  affairs  of  his  country.  Strong  historical  sen- 
timents he  had,  as  he  confesses  in  the  "Reise journal"  but  no  real 
political  vein;  one  single  trait  of  nature  observed  in  a  cottage 

78 


interests  him  more  than  a  diet,  the  account  of  which  fills  a  whole 
newspaper.  He  writes  also  to  Beer  that  as  a  German  and  artist 
he  cannot  take  sides  with  any  political  party,  that  only  the  human, 
natural,  pragmatic  which  he  observes  in  the  masses  and  in  indivi- 
duals here  and  there  interests  him  historically. 

This  was  the  real  Immermann.  Politics  left  him  cold  and  he 
was  as  far  removed  from  young  German  radicalism  and  Revolu- 
tionary views  as  they  took  shape  in  Heine's  emotional,  intense 
and  impulsive  nature,  as  was  Heine  from  Prussian  conservatism. 

To  be  sure,  Heine  feared  the  results  of  the  overthrow  of  the 
existing  social  order.  He  was  afraid  of  the  power  of  the  people 
and  knew  that  in  case  of  a  revolution  his  own  head  would  not  be 
the  last  to  fall.  (Strodtmann  I  p.  665.)  Moreover,  he  knew  that 
temperamentally  he  was  an  aristocrat,  and  the  thought  of  universal 
equality  was  almost  repulsive  to  him.  By  virtue  of  his  genius  he 
belonged  to  the  elite;  aristocracy  of  birth  and  so-called  noble 
institutions  meant  nothing  to  him;  the  aristocracy  of  genius 
everything.  His  tastes  were  fastidious;  his  artistic  nature  con- 
trolled him  always;  and  while  deeply  impressed  by  the  pauperism 
that  he  saw  about  him,  especially  in  London,  and  sympathetic 
with  the  oppressed  lower  classes,  he  never  took  the  initiative  in  any 
schemes  to  alleviate  their  sufferings  nor  did  he  ever  sacrifice  his 
beloved  art  to  the  service  of  social  or  political  questions.  He 
shrank  from  contact  with  the  masses,  and  yet  he  believed  in  the 
rights  of  the  individual  and  preached  this  doctrine  with  all  the 
fervor  that  his  enthusiastic  nature  could  put  into  his  "Idea." 
Thus  his  aristocratic  temperament  and  his  democratic  principles 
were  in  constant  conflict,  but  in  spite  of  his  realization  of  the  at- 
tending dangers,  and  notwithstanding  his  esthetic  prejudices, 
there  is  not  the  least  doubt  th;,t  Heine  passionately  desired  the 
rise  of  a  free  state  and  the  establishment  of  equal  rights  for  all. 

And  so,  on  the  other  hand,  Immermann,  while  able  to  see  the 
advantages  of  the  more  liberal  tendency  in  the  southern  provinces, 
nevertheless  sympathized  with  his  Prussia  and  never  dreamed  of 
any  changes  that  would  involve  danger  to  the  State.  He  found 
intolerable  the  strict  reactionary  measures — ^the  suppression  of 
free  thought  and  speech,  the  censorship  of  the  press,  and  the  dis- 
couragement of  all  original  endeavor  in  the  last  years  of  Friederick 
Wilhelm's  reign.  In  spite  of  the  attachment  he  felt,  in  common 
with  his  people,  for  the  person  of  the  king,  who  had  been  through 
the  same  hardships  as  they,  he  was  filled  with  indignation  at  the 
narrowness  of  his  restraining  policy,  the  cruelty  of  the  deceits 
practiced  upon  his  people,  and  the  whole  burden  of  misery  of  the 

79 


spiritual  stagnation.  Disapproving  of  Prussia's  attitude  toward 
South  German  constitutional  sentiments,  he  turned  the  whole 
force  of  his  satire  against  the  bureaucracy  with  its  opposition  to  all 
free  development  of  state  and  municipal  life;  but  even  more  was 
he  offended  by  the  hostility  of  the  southern  states,  since  he  realized 
that  such  an  organization  as  they  were  blindly  struggling  for,  Prus- 
sia had  already  effected. 

Conservative  then  we  must  acknowledge  Immermann  to  be, 
but — he  felt  himself  a  free  man — both  in  thought  and  in  action, 
free  from  all  servility — unconstrained  in  his  judgment  of  his 
superiors,  and  full  of  sympathy  for  those  beneath  him,  wherever 
he  saw  them  oppressed.  His  dissatisfaction  with  existing  con- 
ditions would  naturally  call  forth  the  sympathy  of  Heine,  who 
would  then  interpret  Immermann's  independence  of  spirit  and 
broad-mindedness  as  a  liberalism  akin  to  his  own,  without  recall- 
ing how  deeply  rooted  in  his  friend's  nature  his  monarchical 
principles  were.  Already  deeply  impressed  by  Immermann's 
strong  sense  of  right  and  justice,  he  saw  in  him  in  1824  a  man  of 
tremendous  energy  and  will,  ready  to  fight  for  an  idea,  as  he  him- 
self was  doing.  This  is  why  he  believed  Immermann  suited  to  the 
post  of  foreign  diplomat;  he  did  not  take  into  consideration  how 
ill  the  devious  ways  of  international  politics  would  accord  with  his 
simple,  straightforward  nature.  But  in  his  unbounded  enthusiasm 
for  his  "Idea" — the  emancipation  of  humanity,  socially  and  po- 
litically— ^Heine  could  easily  misinterpret  Immermann's  liberal 
tendencies  and  read  into  them  his  own  ideas  and  aims,  which 
would  seem  to  him  the  logical  outcome  of  a  character  like  Immer- 
mann's. 

The  very  vagueness  and  general  nature  of  his  Revolutionary 
views  would  make  Heine  the  more  liable  to  misjudge  Immermann's 
position.  First,  he  might  readily  see  in  Immermann's  paternal 
defence  of  his  university  brothers  the  confirmation  of  his  own 
Revolutionary  idea  of  fraternite.  As  a  cosmopolite  by  birth  and 
temperament,  Heine  came  naturally  by  this  idea.  To  be  a  papist 
in  the  narrow  sense  of  the  word,  would  have  been  to  him  an  utter 
impossibility.  As  a  Jew,  he  loved  his  race  and  felt  at  times  an 
infinite  sympathy  with  them;  as  a  politician,  he  belonged  to  the 
French;  as  a  poet,  he  revelled  in  German  sentiment;  and  because  of 
this  cosmopolitanism,  he  could  love  or  curse  any  one  or  all  of  the 
nations  according  to  his  momentary  mood. 

In  his  letter  from  Berlin,  March  16,  1822,  he  writes: 

"  O  German  youth,  how  sinful  and  foolish  do  I  find  you  and 
*'your  words  in  such  moments  when  my  soul  embraces  in  love 

80 


"the  whole  world,  when  I  would  embrace  jubilantly  Russians 
^'  and  Turks,  and  when  I  should  like  to  sink  weeping  on  the  frater- 
"nal  bosom  of  the  shackled  African!  I  love  Germany  and  the 
"Germans,  but  I  love  no  less  the  inhabitants  of  the  rest  of  the 
"earth,  whose  number  is  forty  times  greater  than  that  of  the 
"Germans.  Love  gives  man  his  worth.  Thank  God!  I  am 
"  therefore  worth  forty  times  more  than  those  who  cannot  struggle 
"out  of  the  quagmire  of  national  egotism  and  who  love  only 
"Germany  and  the  Germans.' ' 

Accused  by  Christiani  of  trying  to  divest  himself  of  his  German 

character,  he  writes  (March  7,  1824) :     " ^you  are  mistaken,  I 

"  know  that  I  am  one  of  the  most  German  beasts ;  I  know  only  too 
"well  that  German  is  to  me  what  water  is  to  the  fish,  that  I  can 
"  not  get  out  of  this  vital  element  and — ^to  retain  the  simile  of  the 
"fish — ^must  shrink  up  into  a  dried  cod  (block  head)if — ^to  keep  the 
"aqueous  simile — ^I  leap  out  of  the  water  of  Teutonism.  At  bottom 
"I  love  what  is  German,  more  even  than  everything  else  in  the 
"  world.  I  take  joy  and  delight  in  it  and  my  breast  is  an  archive  of 
"  German  feeling,  as  my  two  books  are  an  archive  of  German  song." 

Notwithstanding  such  extravagant  expressions  of  passionate 
love  for  Germany,  it  is  plain  that  Heine  had  little  national  in- 
stinct, but  as  a  good  Romanticist,  he  was  sincere  in  his  attach- 
ment to  Germany  and  her  traditions.  The  collection  of  poems 
with  the  heading  "  In  der  Fremde' '  among  the  "  Neue  Gedichte/ ' 
written  after  his  voluntary  exile,  are  pathetically  touching  in  their 
note  of  longing  and  of  tender  reminiscence  of  the  German  home, 
especially  the  one  beginning  "Ich  hatte  einst  ein  schones  Vater- 
land' '  perhaps  because  of  its  beautiful,  musical  settings.  But  his 
vague  ideas  of  fraternity  led  him  to  attach  himself  as  one  of  the 
most  zealous  members  to  the  Berlin  Kulturverein,  and  for  a  con- 
siderable time  he  taught  his  Jewish  brothers  history,  German 
language  and  literature  and  French  with  the  greatest  enthusiasm, 
however  unmercifully  he  treated  his  race  at  such  times  as  their 
ignorance  and  sordid  condition  and  meanness  were  borne  upon  him. 

Secondly,  he  believed  also  in  egalit^  theoretically,  and  in  his 
humorous  way  he  praises  the  French  for  their  method  of  equalizing 
their  people  by  gently  removing  the  heads  of  the  greatest.  More 
seriously,  however,  he  takes  up  the  defence  of^  the  people's  rights 
against  the  privileges  of  the  nobility  in  an  article  written  in  1831 
as  introduction  to  "Kahldorf  iiber  den  Adel,  in  Briefen  an  den 
Graf  en  M.  von  Moltke.' '  But  Heine  in  his  tastes  and  temperament 
was  an  out  and  out  aristocrat  and  everything  common  disgusted 
him.     Hence  it  was  that  he  and  Borne  became  so  uncongenial  in 

81 


Paris.  All  Borne's  associations  were  repulsive  to  Heine's  more 
fastidious  nature.  In  theory  he  believed  that  all  men  are  equal; 
there  should  be  no  privileged  classes  by  birth;  individuals  should 
.all  have  the  same  right  in  the  state.  But — and  this  is  a  most 
important  fact  in  Heine's  complex  character — ^there  was  an  aristo- 
cracy that  he  admired — nay,  worshiped:  the  aristocracy  of 
genius.  For  this  he  idolized  Napoleon.  "My  admiration  has 
"respect  not  to  deeds,  but  only  to  the  genius  of  the  man,  whether 
"  this  man  bears  the  name  of  Alexander,  Caesar,  or  Napoleon  *  *  * 
"I  never  extol  the  deed,  but  only  the  human  spirit ;  the  deed  is  only 
"its  garb,  and  history  is  nothing  but  the  old  wardrobe  of  the 
"human  spirit."  (Reise  von  Miinchen  nach  Genua.  Chap.  29.) 
For  Heine  there  was  nothing  beyond  the  dynamic  element  in 
the  activity  of  a  genius — ^the  creative  power,  the  spiritual  force, 
which  was  able  to  impel  to  action,  to  produce  deeds;  it  was  the 
dynamic  that  attracted  Goethe  also  to  Napoleon. 

"Spirit  longs  for  spirit:  wherever  Heine  feels  a  spiritual 
''force,  where  a  creative  genius  discharges  itself  in  deeds,  there  he 
"  lowers  the  weapons  of  criticism  and  accords  unlimited  admiration. 
"  'That  is  the  very  force  of  force,  that  it  makes  us  give  way  directly 
"  to  admiration,  without  first  reasoning  over  its  application.  So  it 
"happens  that  in  our  day  Napoleon  is  praised  by  a  democrat.' 
"His  Napoleon  cult,  which  Hiene  alludes  to  in  this  passage,  is 
"sufficiently  explained  by  the  reverential  wonder  with  which 
"every  exhibition  of  a  dynamic  force  fills  him,  be  it  a  sublime 
"spectacle  of  Nature  or  the  display  of  force  in  a  spiritual  Titan." 
(Boucke.  Euphorion,  1909,  p.  451.) 

It  is  of  great  significance  that  Heine  saw  Napoleon  as  a  four- 
teen-year old  boy  in  Diisseldorf.  The  incomparable  descriptions 
that  he  gives  us  of  the  General  in  "Buch  le  Grand"  makes  as 
indelible  an  impression  upon  our  memory  as  the  actual  appearance 
did  upon  Heine's.  In  Heine's  home,  too.  Napoleon  was  looked 
upon  as  the  long-expected  Messiah  and  so  he  seemed  to  all  the  Diis- 
seldorf Jews — ^their  liberator,  who  through  his  decrees  of  1808,  1809 
and  1812,  freed  them  from  slavery.  In  Berlin  also,  the  most  anti- 
Napoleonic  city  of  all  Germany,  Heine  in  all  probability  was^  influ- 
enced in  his  estimate  of  the  man  by  the  broad-mindedness  of  Rahel 
and  Varnhagen;  for  though  the  latter  had  fought  againstNapoleon, 
he  and  Rahel  were  both  too  great  to  stoop  to  abuse  of  such  a 
genius.  Their  love  of  humanity  made  them  lenient  in  their  judg- 
ment of  all  men  and  their  own  greatness  enabled  them  to  appreciate 
the  truly  great  in  another,  regardless  of  nationality. 


82 


Heine's  ideal  then  was  social  and  political  equality  of  indivi- 
duals, but  his  stronger  sympathies  were  for  the  intellectually 
superior,  and  personally  he  rebelled  at  the  thought  of  contact 
with  the  rude  and  commonplace.  And  how  could  he  feel  differ- 
ently, when  he  was  filled  with  bitterness  over  his  own  miserable, 
unequal  lot  as  a  Jew,  and  at  the  same  time  was  conscious  of  the 
immeasurable  superiority  of  his  genius? 

When  he  visited  Immermann  he  was  experiencing  the  full 
force  of  his  hopeless  condition  in  his  native  country.  The  career 
for  which  he  was  preparing  himself  offered  no  opening  for  a  Jew. 
As  early  as  1822  a  law  had  been  passed  denying  to  his  race  the 
right  to  hold  academic  positions,  so  that  his  aspirations  "  to  teach 
antiquity  in  the  light  of  truth'  'were  shattered.  In  Hamburg  he 
could  not  live  because  of  its  memories  of  his  love-sorrows;  he  hated 
Prussia,  little  dreaming  of  her  destiny,  but  seeing  only  her  weak- 
ness and  mistakes.  He  was  not  far-sighted  enough  to  appreciate 
the  value  of  her  introduction  of  universal  conscription,  her  economi- 
cal management  of  finances,  the  growth  of  an  excellent  civil 
service,  her  efforts  for  the  upbuilding  of  educational  institutions. 
A  mutual  distrust  existed  between  Prussian  and  Rheinlander, 
and  the  suspicion  increased  as  the  power  of  Prussia  advanced, 
for  the  Rhenish  provinces  had  been  so  long  in  close  proximity 
to  the  French  that  they  could  not  accustom  themselves  to  the 
presence  of  Prussia.  They  had  almost  lost  all  national  feeling 
and  were  languid  Germans,  like  the  Alsatians  today.  Heine, 
like  the  other  Rheinlanders,  knew  what  it  was  to  live  now  under 
French  rule,  now  under  Prussian,  and  the  Jews  of  Diisseldorf  had 
Napoleon  to  thank  for  the  greatest  blessing  they  had  ever  enjoyed. 
No  wonder  they  looked  upon  him  as  a  god!  In  return  for  the 
citizenship  that  they  enjoyed  under  him,  they  bore  uncomplain- 
ingly the  unspeakable  burden  of  taxes  and  conscription,  and  as 
time  went  on  and  Prussia's  authority  rested  more  and  more  heavily 
on  the  border  provinces,  the  Jews  looked  back  with  longing  to  the 
freedom  of  the  French  regime.  Heine's  admiration  of  the  French 
likewise  grew  with  his  hatred  of  the  Prussians,  and  he  turned  his 
gaze  toward  the  land  of  promise.  "  Paris  is  a  new  Jerusalem  and 
the  Rhein  is  the  Jordan,  which  separates  the  consecrated  land  of 
freedom  from  the  land  of  the  Philistines.  (Englische  Fragmente 
Chap.  XIII.) 

The  July  Revolution  was  what  finally  caused  Heine  to  take 
the  decisive  step  and  in  1831  he  left  Germany  forever  to  begin  life 
in  his  chosen  country.  This  was  the  land  where  ideas  were  realized , 
where  thoughts  became  deeds,  and  Paris  was  the  centre  from  which 

83 


he  could  act  as  representative  not  of  French,  but  of  world  interests 
Hear  the  glowing  terms  in  which  he  tells  of  the  receipt  of  the  glad 
news  from  Paris.  (Borne  Book  II.)  The  tidings  coming  on  the 
sixth  of  August  fired  him  to  the  highest  pitch  of  enthusiasm. 

"They  were  sunbeams  wrapped  up  in  newspapers  and  they 
*' inflamed  my  soul  to  the  fiercest  blaze.  It  seemed  to  me  that 
"I  could  enkindle  the  whole  ocean  to  the  North  Pole  with  the 
''glow  of  enthusiasm  and  the  mad  joy  that  burned  in  me  *  *  * 
"I  ran  round  in  the  house  like  a  crazy  person  and  kissed  first  the 
"  fat  landlady  and  then  her  friendly  Seewolf,  and  embraced  also 
"  the  Prussian  solicitor,  from  whose  lips,  to  be  sure,  the  frosty  smile 
*'of  incredulity  did  not  entirely  disappear.  Even  the  Dutchman 
"  I  pressed  to  my  bosom.' ' 

Then  on  the  10th  of  August :  "  Gone  is  my  longing  for  rest. 
"Now  I  know  again  what  I  am  to  do,  what  I  must  do  *  *  *  I 
"  am  the  son  of  the  Revolution  and  again  I  lay  hold  of  the  charmed 
"weapons,  over  which  my  mother  pronounced  her  incantations 
<<  *  *  *  Flowers!  Flowers!  I  will  crown  my  head  for  the 
"death struggle!  and  the  lyre  too,  hand  me  the  lyre,  that  I  may 
"  sing  a  battle-song  *  *  *  Words  like  flaming  stars,  which 
"  shoot  down  from  above  and  consume  palaces  and  illumine  huts 
«  *  *  *  Words  like  shining  spears  which  go  whizzing  even 
'*up  to  the  seventh  heaven  and  hit  the  pious  hypocrites,  who  have 
"stolen  into  the  holy  of  holies  there  *  *  *  I  am  all  joy  and 
"song,  all  sword  and  fire!' ' 

A  comparison  with  Immermann's  words  concerning  the 
Revolution  will  give  a  good  idea  of  the  radical  difference  in  their 
views.  The  poet,  instead  of  taking  any  part  in  political  life,  had 
retired  more  and  more  from  public  view  and  was  seeking  to  forget 
himself  in  hard  work.  As  a  German  and  Prussian  he  could 
hardly  be  expected  to  act:  France  was  the  land  of  deeds,  Ger- 
many of  ideals.  Not  that  he  neglected  his  vocation!  The  com- 
monplace official  life  he  led  conscientiously  as  long  as  he  lived 
and  it  served  as  a  counterpoise  to  the  more  imaginative,  so  that 
he  found  little  time  for  the  dreams  that  haunted  natures  less 
practical.  The  July  Revolution,  however,  aroused  him  from  his 
apathy  and  to  Beer,  who  lived  through  the  event  in  France,  he 
writes  (Aug.  15,  1830)  : 

"Never  has  a  fact  had  such  a  powerful  and  thrilling  effect 
"  upon  me  as  this.  It  moved  me  like  a  miracle  and  during  these 
"  weeks  I  have  not  been  able  to  get  to  work  for  excitement.  That 
"  after  all  the  storm  and  blood  of  forty  years  ago  the  Revolution 
"is  repeated,  only  more  imposing  even  than  the  first  time,  is 

84 


*  'without  precedent  in  history  and  shows  the  incalculable  strength 
"  of  the  century  and  the  nation.  The  French  are  right  when  they 
"  call  this  catastrophe  unique,  for  it  has  not  proceeded,  as  usually 
'  'happens,  from  a  physical  necessity,  properly  speaking,  but  rather 
"  from  a  spiritual  need  and  from  the  impulse  to  assert  one's  rights. 
"In  this  enthusiasm  for  something  abstract,  the  event  has  for  me 
"a  similarity  with  the  religious  movement  of  the  Middle  Ages  and 
"  perhaps  the  agent  of  our  times  is  politics,  as  then  it  was  religion." 

But  in  the  belief  that  Germany  would  inevitably  be  involved, 
he  says:  "God  grant  that  my  foreboding  is  wrong!  For  there 
"is  indeed  nothing  for  us  to  expect  from  war  but  disgrace  and 
"ignominy,  increased  liabilities  and  loss  of  provinces."  Also 
in  one  of  his  letters  to  Heine  (first  published  by  Elster  in  the  Rund- 
schau Vol.  107)  he  again  betrays  his  great  agitation  over  the 
reports  from  France,  he  fears  a  struggle  that  will  involve  the  whole 
world  and  is  convinced  that  matters  cannot  be  adjusted  peaceably 
and  that  in  the  war  to  come,  "  Germany  will  again  become  the 
wretched  tavern  in  which  the  riotous  guests  of  freedom  cudgel 
each  other." 

However,  with  the  failure  of  the  Revolution,  the  poet  retired 
again  into  his  own  world,  disappointed  and  chagrined,  and  resumed 
his  old  aristocratic  and  sceptical  standpoint.  To  Beer  he  writes  : 
"  Finally  I  submitted  to  the  decrees  of  fate  and  swore  to  myself 
"  a  sacred  oath  never  again  in  my  life  to  believe  that  anything 
"great  can  originate  from  the  masses  and  to  remain  true  to  my 
"  old  symbol,  that  the  spiritually  great  can  never  proceed  from  any 
"but  individual,  eminent  men.  In  my  resignation  I  found  a 
"feeling  of  youthful  vigor  and  energy  again  such  as  I  had  not 
"experienced  before  for  a  long  time.  I  was  almost  always  in  a 
harmonious  and  productive  mood." 

Thus  we  see  that,  after  all,  Immermann's  feet  were  firmly 
planted  on  German  soil,  that  he  believed  rather  in  evolution  than 
revolution.  The  horizon  that  bounded  his  vision  was  that  of 
law  and  order  and  beyond  it  lay  the  gravest  dangers. 

Nor  did  his  liberal  tendencies  extend  even  to  the  admiration 
of  Napoleon.  His  father,  though  he  said  little  against  Napoleon, 
hated  him;  the  Magdeburg  citizens,  in  contrast  to  those  of  Dussel- 
dorf ,  had  every  reason  to  fear  him,  as  the  city  had  been  forced  to 
capitulate  to  Ney  and  pay  an  extortionate  amount  for  bearable 
treatment  from  his  soldiers.  Although  the  figure  of  Napoleon 
inspired  Immermann  in  his  youth  to  a  cycle  of  poems,  "Das 
Grab  auf  St.  Helena,' '  he  did  not  write  for  the  purpose  of  glorifying 
the  Corsican.     As  he  shows  in  some  verses,  written  at  the  same 

85 


time,  it  is  often  the  charm  of  reflective  observation  that  leads  to 
poetic  creation,  and  here  he  chose  to  reflect  upon  the  condition 
of  Europe.  He  looked  upon  Napoleon  as  the  tool  of  heaven  and 
tried  to  unravel  the  mystery  of  the  despotism  under  which  the 
land  was  suffering.  There  was  pity  for  the  dead,  not  the  living 
Napoleon.  Geffcken  (p.  25  of  the  "  Gedachtnisschrift' ')  shows 
that  there  was  no  contradiction  to  the  cold,  reasoning  analysis 
to  which  Immermann  later  subjected  the  personality  of  Napoleon, 
in  the  first  volume  of  his  "Memorabilien."  He  saw  in  Napoleon 
the  gigantic  tyrant,  whose  shadow  was  despotism,  and  while  he 
recognized  the  incomparable  value  historically  of  a  pure,  simple 
despotism,  he  felt  Napoleon's  to  be  a  discordant,  defective  type 
resulting  from  the  colossal  egoism  of  the  man,  and  had  only  cen- 
sure for  it. 

Not  only  in  the  world  of  politics,  but  also  in  the  social  world 
was  Immermann  distinctly  conservative.  The  "Epigonen" 
and  "  Miinchhausen"  show  him  a  friend  and  champion  of  the 
peasant  and  citizen  classes,  of  all  who  are  oppressed  and  struggling 
to  rise.  But  there  is  no  evidence  of  revolutionary  enthusiasm. 
Only  in  a  gradual  evolutionary  progress  does  he  see  hope  for  the 
the  lower  classes.  Being  not  a  fantastic  dreamer,  but  a  sub- 
stantial, live,  active  man,  he  sees  the  approach  of  industrialism 
and  its  union  with  feudalism  as  inevitable,  in  order  to  bring  new 
life  into  the  old  decayed  class,  and  to  counteract  the  one-sided- 
ness  of  the  new.  In  "  Tulifantchen"  he  deliciously  satirizes  the 
industrial  movement;  in  his  later  works  his  broad  sympathies 
have  led  him  to  strike  out  on  new  paths  toward  a  healthy  realism, 
and  he  no  longer  takes  a  pessimistic  view  of  the  present.", 

Thirdly.  Heine's  ideas  of  liberte,  for  which  he  showed  him- 
self a  tireless  fighter,  were  rather  negative  than  positive.  He 
fought  for  no  particular  form  of  liberty,  but  for  removal  of  oppres- 
sion, for  protection  and  leisure.  In  this  vague  conception,  as  in 
his  conception  of  equality,  the  artistic  element  in  his  nature  gained 
over  the  liberal  and  cosmopolitan  and  it  was  as  an  artist  that  he 
felt  the  oppression  and  struggled  for  freedom  to  realize  himself. 
Aware  of  the  fact  that  great  art  epochs  have  been  under  the  patron- 
age of  great  rulers,  he  was  dissatisfied  at  finding  no  encouragement 
under  Friedrich  Wilhelm  III.  As  a  whole,  the  young  Germans  had 
no  more  definite  ideas  than  Heine.  That  freedom  implied  civic 
duties  did  not  occur  to  them,  their  influence  consisted  in  the 
enthusiasm  that  they  inspired,  rather  than  in  the  value  of  the 
ideas  formulated.  The  whole  period  was  rich  enough  in  ideas 
and  impulses,  but  poor  in  the  real  values  of  life  and  in  action. 

86 


It  was  a  time  of  feverish  seeking  and  longing,  of  disappointment 
and  resignation,  of  problematical  characters,  and  Heine  was  one 
of  the  most  characteristic  figures  in  this  literary,  social,  and 
political  transition-period — ^the  type  of  thousands  of  young  men 
in  Germany  at  that  time,  who,  restless  and  discontented  and 
without  occupation,  left  their  country  for  more  promising  condi- 
tions. 

Moreover,  Heine's  idea  of  emancipation  embraced  the  whole 
world  and  meant  to  him  freedom  from  the  domination  of  priesthood 
and  aristocracy — freedom  in  both  political  and  religious  life.  In 
the  "  Reise  von  Miinchen  nach  Genua,"  Chap.  29,  he  says :  "  Every 
"  period  has  its  problem  and  through  the  solution  of  it  humanity 
"  advances  *  *  *  g^^  what  is  this  great  problem  of  the 
"  time?  It  is  emancipation.  Not  merely  that  of  the  Irish,  Greeks, 
"Frankfort  Jews,  West-Indian  Blacks,  and  the  like  oppressed 
"  people,  but  it  is  the  emancipation  of  the  whole  world,  particularly 
"of  Europe,  which  has  become  of  age  and  is  now  tearing  itself 
"  free  from  the  iron  leading-strings  of  the  privileged,  the  aristoc- 
"  racy  *  *  *  Every  age  believes  that  its  struggle  is  the  most 
''important  of  all,  this  is,  properly  speaking,  the  religion  of  the 
"  age;  in  this  it  lives  and  dies  and  we  also  will  live  and  die  in  this 
"reigion  of  freedom,  which  perhaps  deserves  more  the  name  re- 
"  ligion  than  the  hollow,  dead  spectre  that  we  are  still  accustomed 
"  to  call  by  that  name.' ' 

This  very  vagueness  of  all  Heine's  Revolutionary  views  I 
believe  is  to  blame  for  his  misinterpretation  of  Immermann's 
liberalism,  and  so  again  it  is  not  the  question  of  what  Immermann 
was,  so  much  what  Heine  saw  in  him.  Immermann's  dissatisfac- 
tion and  longing — his  Weltschmerz — his  pessimistic  view  of  the 
political  and  social  condition  of  Germany,  his  intention  to  enter 
the  more  sympathetic  field  of  foreign  diplomacy,  his  independence 
in  thought  and  act;  his  fearlessness  in  combatting  evils — all  this 
and  many  other  qualities  of  Immermann's  nature  interpreted 
through  the  medium  of  Heine's  subjectivity  could  easily  suggest 
to  him  far  more  radical  tendencies  than  existed  in  reality,  so  that 
it  is  not  surprising  that  he  imagined  an  admirable  harmony  of 
thought. 

There  is  another  interesting  side  to  Immermann's  character : 
however  conservative  he  was  in  the  social  and  political  world,  in 
the  world  of  literature  he  was  a  friend  of  innovation.  Beginning 
with  "  Edwin' '  he  showed  himself  really  revolutionary  by  intro- 
ducing contemporary  satire,  and  in  the  Platen  epigrams  and  all 
his  later  works  he  continued  to  hold  the  mirror  of  satire  and  poetic 

87 


humor  to  all  the  follies  and  shortcomings  of  the  age  with  startling 
audacity.  While  Goethe's  and  Schiller's  "  Xenien' '  and  Tieck's 
"Marchen"had  to  do  only  with  literature  and  poetry,  Immermann's 
satire  was  directed  against  social  and  political  conditions  besides. 
And  surely  the  introduction  of  the  Westphalian  peasant  into 
literature  and  the  glorification  of  his  race  was  a  decided  novelty, 
and  the  "  Trauerspiel  in  Tirol' '  in  no  less  degree,  especially  as  it 
was  illumined  by  the  light  of  contrast  with  the  prevailing  state 
of  society  and  politics  in  the  rest  of  Germany,  since  it  took  its 
material  from  the  recent  past  of  a  German  people  and  exalted  a 
war  of  independence  bearing  the  outer  character  of  unlawful 
self-help.  In  its  revision  as  "  Andreas  Hofer' '  it  was  barred  from 
performance  on  any  German  stage,  for  the  reason  that  part  of  its 
sentimental  character  was  banished  and  it  was  put  on  a  strictly 
historical  basis,  Metternich's  system  being  unmistakably  branded 
by  serving  as  the  cause  of  Hofer's  ruin. 


If  friendship  is  based  on  congeniality  in  the  essentials  of  life, 
then  surely  we  must  consider  the  religious  natures  of  the  two  poets, 
whether  their  views  here  could  have  contributed  to  the  union  of 
their  interests  and  their  soul  life. 

There  is  no  discussion  of  this  subject  in  Heine's  letters  to 
Immermann,  but  we  can  hardly  imagine  the  poets  spending  four 
days  together  without  each  coming  to  some  understanding  of  the 
other's  philosophy  of  life.  How  could  Heine  have  talked  on 
political  matters  without  reference  to  his  hopeless  position  as  a 
Jew,  which  was  so  powerful  a  factor  in  determining  his  whole 
future  career?  Was  not  the  Judenschmerz  the  most  terrible  of 
all  national  sorrows  and  was  not  Heine's  Judaism  of  necessity 
bound  up  with  his  social,  political  and  literary  life  so  indissolubly 
as  to  make  a  separate  treatment  of  his  religious  views  a  practical 
impossibility?  He  felt  all  the  tragic  in  the  history  of  the  Jews : 
''Yet,"  he  says,"  if  one  were  to  write  about  this  tragedy,  one  would 
be  laughed  at.  This  is  the  most  tragic  of  all."  The  conviction  that, 
as  a  Jew,  he  could  not  fiad  employment  in  Germany  was  growing 
upon  him  and  his  despair  was  at  almost  no  time  deeper  than  in  the 
first  years  of  his  acquaintance  with  Immermann.  His  letters 
from  this  period  to  Wohlwill,  Moser,  and  others  testify  to  his 
indignation  and  bitterness  against  Christianity — a  mood  that  was 
only  intensified  after  his  apostasy,  when  he  found  that  he  was 
no  better  off  than  before  the  change.  It  is  unthinkable,  then, 
that  Heine  should  not  have  revealed  what  was  uppermost  in  his 

88 


mind  at  this  time;  he  had  already  betrayed  himself  in  his  "  Alman- 
sor"  and  had  even  expressed  to  Immermann  the  hope  that  he 
might  soon  be  known  perfectly  by  his  friend.  (Dec.  24,  1822.) 
So  there  seems  every  reason  to  believe  that  absolute  frankness 
existed  between  them  and  that  there  was  a  hearty  endeavor  to 
understand  and  appreciate  each  other's  view.  Immermann  says 
in  one  of  his  letters  to  Marianne — ^the  one  in  which  he  makes  the 
confessions  of  his  faults  and  weaknesses,  defending  himself  against 
false  accusations  and  describing  his  character  with  the  incompar- 
able charm  of  naivete  and  modesty :  ''  I  am  thoroughly  unassuming, 
I  always  respect  another's  opinions,  another's  merits  and  talent.' ' 
In  his  letters  to  Michael  Beer,  he  constantly  praises  truth  and 
frankness  as  most  necessary  to  friendship  and  in  his  correspc  ndence 
with  his  beloved  he  speaks  of  truth  as  the  eternal  watchword 
between  them,  a  firm  rock. 

This  absolute  truthfulness  was  one  of  the  most  marked  charac- 
t  eristics  of  Immermann's  being.  He  could  tolerate  nothing  less  in  a 
friend,  and  since  truth,  sincerity,  frankness  beget  like  qualities 
in  one's  friends,  as  Goethe  liked  to  believe,  we  can  feel  sure  that 
the  two  poets  exchanged  views  with  mutual  openness,  as  they 
had  done  in  their  preceding  correspondence.  One  difference 
in  their  religious  views  will  strike  the  student  at  once.  While 
Heine's  can  be  characterized  not  as  permanent,  but  at  most  only 
as  a  prolonged,  intensified  mood,  Immermann's  can  be  regarded 
as  his  well-grounded  and  lasting  conviction.  Not  that  Immer- 
mann could  not  change  an  opinion  that  he  once  held  as  settled! 
On  the  contrary,  as  he  confessed  to  Marianne,  he  was  often  accused 
of  being  changeable,  but  to  quote  his  own  words:  "In  among 
"  all  my  mistakes  and  weaknesses  there  is  intertwined  in  my  soul 
"  a  deep  feeling  for  truth  in  all  things.  I  cannot  be  content  with 
"superficial  ideas:  I  see  continually  the  most  profound  and 
"  ultimate.  From  this  proceeds  the  restless  pondering  and  brood- 
"  ing  of  my  mind,  also  the  ability  of  my  nature  to  relinquish  that 
"which  I  am  convinced  my  mind  chose  in  error.  To  follow  out 
"  something  erroneous  in  order — as  people  are  accustomed  to  say — 
"  to  remain  consistent,  to  perpetuate  a  mistake — ^that  is  for  me 
"  impossible.  The  great  law  of  motion  and  change  is  deeply  im- 
"  printed  in  my  soul.  God  sends  the  seasons,  one  after  the  other, 
*'He  causes  men  to  be  born,  to  grow,  and  to  die,  kingdoms  to  rise 
"and  fall,  and  so  I  believe  man  should  not  desire  to  petrify  the 
"  moment.  But  in  every  instant  he  should  achieve  and  conquer 
"anew  the  established.' ' 


89 


Still,  the  religious  convictions  formed  early  in  life  and  be- 
trayed in  his  first  writings  and  his  first  public  acts  were  not  essen- 
tially different  from  those  revealed  in  his  confessions  to  Marianne 
in  1837.  The  same  deeply  serious  nature  is  perceived  through 
his  early  letters  to  his  brother  Ferdinand,  whom  he  encourages 
to  free  himself  from  doubts  and  get  nearer  to  God  through  a 
careful  study  of  the  Bible.  Immermann  feels  always  his  oneness 
with  God  who  is  everywhere  and  in  everything  and  this  certainty 
of  his  existence  and  the  consciousness  of  the  indestructible  union 
of  the  individual  with  him  is  the  conclusion  reached  in  "Merlin.'' 
"  Wherever  I  am,  whatever  I  do,  I  feel  myself  on  the  breast  of  the 
''everlasting  Father:  I  have  an  unshaken  confidence  inJriim,  my 
''God,  who,  to  be  sure,  has  not  granted  me  all  my  wishes,  but, 
"nevertheless,  has  led  me  to  that  point  where  I  have  had  to 
"  acknowledge  His  rule,  even  in  the  most  adverse  matters,  as  holy 
"  and  just.' '  This  same  justice  that  he  felt  was  administered  him 
Immermann  practiced  toward  others  in  actual  life,  and  this 
insistence  on  justice  we  have  already  pointed  out  as  prominent 
in  much  that  he  wrote.  As  early  as  in  "  Ronceval' '  we  find  that 
profoundly  serious  tone  and  the  moral  lesson  that  great  misfor- 
tune and  tragic  consequences  often  follow  a  very  little  wrong. 

But  Immermann's  religious  nature  was  of  the  non-ecclesiasti- 
cal type.  To  understand  the  true  significance  of  this  fact,  one 
must  project  one's  self  into  the  spirit  of  German  religious  life  of 
nearly  a  century  ago  and  try  to  realize  the  burden  of  18th  century 
dogma  under  which  the  people  were  still  held  down,  the  formalism 
of  both  the  Catholic  and  the  Protestant  confessions,  together  with 
the  confining  influence  of  the  Pietistic  culture.  Although  con- 
ditions were  less  rigid  in  North  Germany,  even  there  Immermann's 
views  stood  out  by  comparsion  as  those  of  a  decided  liberalist.  He 
seldom  went  to  church,  because  he  seldom  felt  the  need,  though 
he  benefited  by  the  communion  service  whenever  he  attended, 
and  while  in  certain  moods  he  could  be  moved  to  tears  by  the  story 
of  the  Passion,  he  stood  in  no  relation  to  the  gospels  in  themselves 
or  to  Christ  as  he  appears  there.  Christianity  was  to  him  an  exter- 
nal fact  of  the  deepest  truth  and  necessity,  but  the  real  Christian 
state  of  mind  he  experienced  only  when  he  buried  himself  in  the 
whole  history  of  the  church.  The  forcible  separation  of  gospel 
sayings  from  the  context  and  their  conversion  into  formulas  for 
passing  sentence  on  individual  cases  seemed  to  Immermann 
abominable — a  total  misconstruction  of  Christ,  who  came  to  free 
the  world  from  the  letter  of  the  law  and  to  teach  the  one  only 
lesson  of  perfect  love  to  one's  neighbor. 

90 


"I  think  of  God,"  he  says  (letter  to  Marianne  Feb.  22, 
*1839)  as  engaged  in  an  eternal  alliance  of  love  with  the  world. 
'  *  *  *  Sin  is  there,  certainly,  but  it  is  only  the  negative 
'  element — ^that  which  is  not  yet  permeated  with  God — nothing 
'  positive.  In  the  end  God  will  be  everywhere  and  consequently 
'hell  will  cease  to  be.  So  reads  my  confession  of  faith,  which, 
'it  must  indeed  be  admitted,  may  not  stand  in  the  formulas  of 
'the  system." 

Immermann  confessed  to  a  belief  in  eternal  life,  because  it 
seemed  unreasonable  to  him  that  the  highest  and  best  in  us — 
the  spiritual  person — the  individual — ^the  ego — should  be  lost 
after  a  life-effort  to  make  of  ourselves  what  God  destined  for  us; 
but  his  conviction  rested  wholly  on  faith  and  feeling  and  he  never 
attempted  to  imagine  the  future  life  in  definite  pictures,  on  account 
of  the  inevitable  contradictions. 

"  One  should  hope,  always  hope,  but  not  make  all  too  definite 
an  image  of  the  things  to  be  hoped  for  *  *  *  By  hope  I  under- 
stand something  very  high  and  divine  in  man,  the  ever  positive 
element  in  him,  the  conviction  that  everything  which  once  truly 
lived  and  moved  in  him  will  also  sometime  and  somewhere  bear 
visible  fruit.  And  not  perchance  in  the  next  world  alone,  to 
which,  on  the  whole,  I  should  not  care  to  see  mankind  referred 
too  generously,  but  even  in  this  world — ^to  be  sure,  many  a  fruit 
acquires  a  different  form  under  God's  care  than  man  thought  of 
in  the  moment  of  germination  *  *  *  Heaven  is  already 
on  earth;  we  can  recognize  the  Divine  Being  in  all  forms  of  earth 
and  even  here  below  lead  an  eternal  life;  nay,  he  alone  will  see 
blessedness  who  has  even  felt  eternity  in  the  temporal  and 
stamped  it  plainly  in  every  aspect  of  his  life.  This  sounds,  to  be 
sure,  somewhat  at  variance  with  the  conception  expressed  in 
such  utterances  as  'the  earth  is  only  a  place  of  preparation' 
we  are  'pilgrims  on  earth,'  etc., but  yet  it  seems  to  me  that  it  was 
in  all  probabilty  the  real  meaning  of  what  Christ  said  and  desired 
on  earth." 

Immermann  knew  that  what  he  lacked  was  the  personal 
relation  to  the  Savior  and  this  he  felt  could  be  obtained  only  by 
a  strictly  ecclesiastical  life;  but  with  the  so-called  pious  he  had  no 
sympathy,  because  of  their  narrow-mindedness  and  their  inability 
to  see  beyond  their  own  limited  circle  and  view  a  man's  whole  life, 
his  aims  and  endeavors.  Much  as  he  desired  the  closer  relation, 
however,  he  could  not  honestly  join  with  the  church  and  keep  up 
his  connection  with  the  Countess  Elise,  which,  of  course,  the 
church  would  not  countenance.     But  as  long  as  he  remained 

91 


natural  and  free  from  every  hypocritical  affectation,  he  knew 
himself  a  Christian  man  in  his  own  way,  and  practiced  the  Chris- 
tian virtues  of  patience,  submission,  and  reconciliation  in  full 
confidence  that  God  was  leading  him.  His  whole  life,  indeed, 
from  his  first  love  disappointment  through  the  long  years  of 
patient  renunciation  of  the  happy  family  life  for  which  he  longed, 
seemed  to  preach  resignation. 

One  more  passage  from  a  letter  to  Marianne  I  cannot  refrain 
from  quoting  here,  as  it  shows  a  remarkable  religious  liberalism 
for  those  days.  It  is  in  answer  to  a  condemnation  of  Goethe 
which  Marianne  had  heard  uttered.  Immermann  writes :  "  It  is 
"  a  hideous  and  preposterous  accusation  to  deny  religion  to  any- 
"body;  no  one  is  without  it,  even  the  atheist  confesses  God 
"through  his  denial."  Later  Immermann  makes  this  same  asser- 
tion again  in  a  letter  to  a  relative  (published  by  von  Putlitz), 
adding:  "for  his  denial  even  is  a  struggle  against  the  Divine 
force  seeking  to  penetrate  him."  As  for  Goethe,  he  was  not 
only  religious,  but  in  his  way,  even  Christian.  His  continuous, 
incessant,  faithful  search  for  truth,  his  charitable  conception  of  all 
human  relations,  his  recognition  of  the  dignity  of  man,  even  the 
most  perverted,  is  thoroughly  Christian.  In  the  "  Memorabilien,' ' 
p.  372,  he  says  again :  "  He  (Goethe)  had  the  religion  to  be  a 
"  great  man  and  to  compel  foreigners  to  admiration,  while  we 
"crouched  in  the  dust  before  them.  I  tell  you,  these  two 
"heathen  (Goethe  and  Schiller)  have  been  of  more  service  to 
"us  than  you  good  Christians  ever  were  or  are  now  or  will  be." 

The  few  confessions  in  Immermann's  own  words  betray  a 
breadth  of  view,  a  clear  understanding  of  the  values  of  life,  a 
broad  sympathy,  which  would  admit  of  friendship  with  Jew  ^r^ 
Gentile  and  not  know  distinction  of  race  or  creed.  With  pe  re  ct 
freedom  from  prejudice,  the  Protestant  Immermann,  while 
director  of  the  Diisseldorf  stage,  had  the  plays  of  the  Catholic 
Calderoa  given  along  with  those  of  Schiller  and  Goethe;  no  nar- 
row-mindedness shut  out  from  his  vision  the  great  and  worthy, 
wherever  it  existed. 

This  liberalism  in  religion  would  make  a  strong  appeal  to 
Heine  who  was  hurling  his  invectives  against  Jew  and  Christian 
alike.  His  Jewish  descent  and  home-training  and  his  instruction 
by  Catholic  priests  were  responsible  for  an  early  scepticism;  for 
Heine  was  a  keen,  observant  lad,  who  soon  noticed  the  incon- 
sistencies and  drew  his  own  conclusions.  Besides  this,  his  mother 
was  a  Rationalist,  steeped  in  eighteenth  century  thought,  fond  of 
Rousseau  and  Voltaire,  and  this  influence,  together  with  that  of 

92 


the  French  with  whom  he  associated  in  his  boyhood,  tended  to 
increase  his  doubts  and  foster  agnosticism.  His  reason  caused 
him  to  lose  sympathy  with  the  Jewish  ritual,  and  yet,  as  he  expe- 
rienced during  his  work  for  the  Verein  in  Berlin,  Judaism  stripped 
of  its  rites  was  nothing  but  the  barest,  unadorned  Rationalism. 
Against  the  barrenness  of  a  Hebraism  that  knew  no  ritual  and  no 
national  language,  his  artistic  nature  revolted;  his  Romantic 
imagination  inclined  him  rather  to  the  warmth  of  Catholicism, 
his  reason,  however,  to  Protestantism,  yet  no  one  was  more  bitter 
against  popes  and  priests,  both  Catholic  and  Protestant,  than 
Heinrich  Heine. 

While  sacrificing  time  and  energy  to  teaching  in  the  Verein, 
attracted  to  the  work  partly  by  his  affection  for  the  great  men  at 
the  head,  he  yet  took  occasion  to  dispel  the  illusion  of  the  Ham- 
burg Jews  that  he  was  enthusiastic  for  the  Jewish  religion.  It  was 
rather  his  interest  in  improving  the  condition  of  the  Jews  and 
making  them  fit  for  civic  rights  (letter  to  Moser,  Aug.  23,  1823). 
Three  months  later  (Nov.  28,  1823)  he  writes  Moser  again:  ''I 
*'have  received  a  letter  from  my  Uncle  von  Geldern.  He  writes  me 
"that  along  the  whole  Rhine  I  am  as  much  hated  as  once  I  was 
''loved,  because  they  say  there  that  I  am  interested  in  the^  Jews. 
"Truly,  I  did  laugh!  O,  how  I  despise  the  human  rabble,  uncircum- 
"cized  together  with  the  circumcized!' ' 

Not  a  Jew,  not  a  Christian,  not  an  Oriental,  but  according  to 
his  mood,  all  of  them  and  at  the  same  time  hostile  to  all — ^Heine 
defies  labelling  and  can  be  treated  only  as  an  individual.  "A 
born  enemy  of  all  positive  religions,"  (to  Moser  Aug.  23)  he 
yet  would  have  been  tolerant  of  all  dogmas,  all  religions,  if  only 
the  church  had  not  been  connected  with  the  state.  "There  is  a 
"  pious  dialetic,  dear  reader,  which  will  prove  to  you  most  convinc- 
"ingly  that  an  opponent  of  the  establishment  of  such  a  state 
"  religion  is  an  enemy  of  religion  and  also  of  the  state,  an  enemy 
"  of  God,  and  of  the  king,  or,  as  the  usual  formula  goes,  an  enemy 
"  of  the  throne  and  the  altar.  But  I  say  to  you,  that  is  a  lie.  I 
"honor  the  inner  sanctity  of  every  religion, subordinate  myself 
"  to  the  interests  of  the  state.' ' '  (Die  Stadt  Lucca.  Chap.  XIV.) 
But  state  religion  Heine  believed  to  be  a  constant  menace  to  the 
spiritual  freedom  of  the  human  race  and  an  obstacle  to  the  outer 
development  of  peoples.  Anv  religion  associated  with  politics 
was  impure;  Heine  would  substitute  the  democratic  religion  of 
reason  for  that  of  transmitted  revelation,  because  reason  is  an 
unceasing  revelation,  which  is  repeated  in  every  human  head, 
while  the  revelation  that  was  given  only  a  few  is  aristocratic; 

93 


not  with  that  sort  can  one  fight  aristocrats,  but  with  a  democratic 
revelation.  Finally,  Heine  reaches  the  conclusion  that  the  religion 
of  the  future  is  the  religion  of  reason,  of  freedom,  equality, 
fraternity,  which  was  preached  not  to  the  rich,  but  to  the  poor. 
Christianity  is  in  its  very  nature  identical  with  such  a  religion, 
for  Christ,  its  prophet,  was  not  a  God  of  the  aristocracy,  but 
of  the  people,  "  a  citizen-God — ^the  God  of  love — of  the  unhappy, 
the  disinherited,  and  the  suffering.  ' ' 

But  the  caste  spirit,  embodied  in  churches  and  the  nobility, 
tyrannizing  over  the  masses  by  means  of  a  ministry  of  the  privi- 
leged, Heine  felt  must  be  broken.  Just  as  the  nobility  had  usurped 
political  power,  so  the  priests  had  usurped  the  religious  and  made 
it  subservient  to  their  own  ends,  had  dogmatized  it  and  finally 
united  it  with  the  state,  in  order  to  degrade  the  temporal  power 
to  serve  their  insatiable  ambition.  Just  because  Heine  was  a 
friend  of  religion  and  of  state,  he  hated  "  that  monstrosity  called 
state-religion."  War  on  priests,  war  on  the  state-church,  war 
on  the  nobility!  This  is  the  watchword  that  Heine  gave  to  all 
friends  of  freedom,  all  who  were  struggling  for  universal  emanci- 
pation. This  summary  of  the  religious  views  of  the  two  poets 
shows  again  the  common  ground  of  meeting  on  this  most  serious 
of  all  subjects.  Again  it  was  in  their  abhorrence  of  all  intolerance 
and  in  their  breadth  of  human  sympathy  that  they  must  have 
found  their  views  of  life  in  agreement. 

The  foregoing  pages  have  disproved,  I  hope,  the  belief  of 
Max  Koch  and  others  that  Heine's  words  to  Immermann  were 
nothing  but  insinuating  flattery,  made  use  of  in  order  to  gain  and 
maintain  an  alliance  with  a  man  of  weight  and  distinction  for  tHp 
the  purpose  of  more  effective  polemical  utterance.  The  state- 
ment that  the  friendship  grew  out  of  their  common  grievance 
against  Platen  is  plainly  false.  A  common  enemy  is  very  often  a 
bond  of  friendship  and  the  fact  that  the  two  poets  defended  each 
other  against  the  attack  of  the  classic  Count  may  have  drawn 
them  a  little  more  closely  to  one  another  for  the  time.  But  the 
friendship  had  been  established  long  before,  and  both  poets  had 
shown  themselves  true  in  it.  On  other  occasions  Heine  felt  im- 
pelled to  protect  his  friend  against  an  enemy,  for  it  was  always  a 
source  of  surprise  to  him  that  Immermann's  work  was  not  more 
favorably  received.  Adverse  criticism — "the  insidious  attacks 
and  systematic  intriguing" — affected  him  most  unpleasantly 
and  he  reproached  Wolfgang  Menzel  in  1830  for  the  bitterness  that 
he  showed  toward  Immermann.  He  does  not  mind  injustice  to 
himself,  but  the  wrongs  done  his  brother-in-arms  hurt  him  sorely. 

95 


That  Heine,  then,  was  sincere  in  his  affection  and  honestly  ad- 
mired and  envied  Immermann's  genius,  that  he  was  strengthened 
and  refreshed  by  his  correspondence  with  a  man  of  Immermann's 
sound  principles  and  wholesome  qualities,  that  his  regret  over  the 
death  of  his  friend  was  heartfelt — all  this  is  a  matter  of  no  doubt. 
The  friendship  was  one  of  mutual  helpfulness,  Immermann  de- 
riving certain  more  material  advantages,  Heine  the  sense  of  com- 
fort and  satisfaction  from  a  friend  in  whom  he  found  his  ideals 
realized — his  ideals  in  a  coveted  literary  field  as  well  as  in  many 
attributes  of  character.  The  mutual  sympathy  of  two  isolated 
human  beings,  Heine's  joy  in  finding  a  friend  in  a  man  of  such 
stability  and  sense  and  weight,  his  idealization  of  his  "  Waffen- 
bruder' '  and,  in  turn,  the  latter's  deep  respect  for  Heine's  superior 
lyrical  genius  and  his  gratitude  to  him — ^these  were  the  bonds  that 
united  the  two  poets  and  held  them  together  in  a  natural,  if  some- 
what romantic  friendship. 

It  is  true,  however,  that  Immermann  played  the  more 
passive  role  throughout.  As  he  grew  older,  he  became  more  and 
more  conservative,  while  Heine  was  constantly  becoming  more 
radical.  The  correspondence  came  to  a  natural  end  and  the 
poets  drifted  apart.  So  we  are  not  greatly  surprised  to  find  that 
Immermann  just  before  his  death  was  so  far  removed  from  Heine 
that  he  could  no  longer  sympathize  with  his  political  views.  Prus- 
sian to  the  core,  he  felt  that  the  new  Rationalism  was  hollow  and 
he  could  not  excuse  the  attitude  of  its  advocates  in  the  literary 
field.  Thus  in  1838  he  says  to  Gutzkow  (Gutzkow,  Samtliche 
Werke,  Vol.  8,  p.  153) :  "  Heine  is  a  droll,  queer  fellow,  but  a 
"hopeless  braggart,  in  whom  no  confidence  can  be  placed  and 
"whose  recent  works  I  do  not  read  any  more."  Such  a  remark 
made  in  reference  to  Heine's  political  views  after  so  many  years 
of  separation  does  not  point  to  any  insincerity  in  their  earlier 
relations.  It  merely  proves  that  Immermann  realized  more, 
perhaps,  than  Heine  that  their  ways  had  widely  diverged  and  saw 
in  him  no  longer  the  great  lyrist,  but  the  exponent  of  political  and 
religious  doctrines  of  which  he  disapproved.  Nevertheless,  in 
memory  of  their  earlier  literary  struggles  together,  and  their  close 
sympathy  in  the  twenties,  Immermann  still  continued  to  send 
warm  messages  of  greeting  to  Heine  in  Paris  and  as  late  as  1839 
he  desired  that  Laube  share  with  Heine  the  copyof'Miinchhausen," 
which  he  was  sending  him. 

As  for  the  letter  to  Beer,  May  3,  1830,  which  is  sometimes 
quoted  as  evidence  of  Immermann's  coldness  toward  Heine 
and  his  apparent  indifference  to  his  attentions,  we  admit  that  the 

96 


tone  sounds  somewhat  cool  and  calculating  when  compared  with 
the  warm,  impulsive  utterances  of  Heine,  yet  we  must  recall  the 
circumstances  under  which  the  words  were  written  and  attribute 
a  moderate  amount  of  diplomacy  to  Immermann  when  addressing 
a  man  with  whom  he  was  carrying  on  a  most  intimate  literary 
correspondence  and  whose  sentiments  toward  Heine's  attitude 
in  the  Platen  affair  he  knew  to  agree  with  his  own.  But  in  spite 
of  the  diplomatic  tone,  there  is  enough  in  the  letter  to  show  that 
Immermann's  gratitude  and  affection  were  sincere  and  he  never 
forgot  what  he  owed  to  his  friend  Heine. 


96 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Editions. 

Elster — Heinrich  Heines  Samtliche  Werke.     Leipzig.  1890 

Maync — Immermanns  Werke.     Leipzig,  1906 

Boxberger — Immermanns  Werke  20  Bande.     Berlin.  1883 

Biographies  and  Letters, 

Karpeles — Heinrich  Heine.     Leipzig.  1899 

Karpeles — ^Heines  Autobiographie.     Berlin.  1888 

Daifis — Heine-Brief  e  2  Bande.     Berlin.  1906 

Strodtmann — Briefe  von  Heinrich  Heine  XIX,  XX,  XXI. 
Von  Embden — Heinrich  Heines  Familienleben.     Hamburg.     1892 
Elster — Heine  und  Christiani  Rundschau.  107  S  426  ff. 
AUgemeine  deutsche  Biographie. 
Goedeke — Geschichte  der  deutschen  Literatur 
Hiiffer — Aus  dem  Leben  Heinrich  Heines.     Berlin.  1878 

Max.  Heine — Erinnerungen  an  Heinrich  Heine.     Berlin.  1868 

Von  Putlitz — Karl  Immermann-2  Bande.     Berlin.  1870 

Adolf  Stahr — Immermann.  1843 

Max  Koch — Beitrage  zur  Erliiuterung  der  Immermann'schen 
Werke  in  Karschners  Deutsche  Nationalliteratur. 
Von  Schenk — Beers  Briefwechsel  mit  Immermann. 

Historical  and  Critical  Works. 

Johann  Proelss — Das  Junge  Deutschland.     Stuttgart.  1892 

Robert  Proelss — Heinrich  Heine.     Stuttgart.  1886 

Holzhausen — Heinrich  Heine  und  Napoleon  I.  Frankfort.  1903 
Brandes — Die  Literatur  des  neunzehnten  Jahrhunderts  in 

ihren  Hauptstromungen-Band  VI-S  90  fif.  Leipzig.  1891 
Bartels — Geschichte  der  deutschen  Literatur-2  tes  Band  iieber 

das  neunzehnte  Jahrhundert.     Leipzig.  1902 

Kaufmann — Heinrich  Heine  contra  Graf  August  von  Platen. 

Leipzig.  1907 

Lichtenberger — Heine  als  Denker.     Dresden.  1905 


97 


O.  H.  &  G.  Geffcken — Karl  Immermann.     Eine  Gedachtniss- 
chrift  zum  100  sten  Geburtstag  des  Dichters.     Ham- 
burg. 1896 

R.    M.    Meyer — Deutsche    Charaktere.     Karl    Immermann. 

Berlin.  1897 

Deetjen — Immermanns  Jugenddramen.  S  120-127,  lieipzig.      1904 

Jahn — Immermanns  Merlin.     Berlin  1899 

Erich  Schmidt— Charakteristiken.      S  288-295,  Berlin.  1901 

Klovekorn — Immermann's  Verhaltnis  zum  deutschen  Alter- 

tum.     Miinster.  ^  1907 

Treitschke — Deutsche  Geschichte  im  neunzehnten  Jahrhun- 

dert.     S  446-451.  1889 

Wienbarg — Zur  neuesten  Literatur.     S  34-119,  Hamburg.       1838 

Wienbarg — Esthetische  Feldziige. 

Laube — References  in  his  Samtliche  Werke.     50  Bande. 

Donner — Der  Einfluss  Wilhelm  Meisters  auf  den  Roman  der 

Romantiker.     Berlin.  1893 

Gutzkow — Karl  Immermann  in  Hamburg. 

Page. 
I.     Introduction.  ^     ^ 

II.     Personal  and  Literary  Relations  of  the  Poets  ^  "OO-  ^  j 

III.     Psychological  Explanation  of  this  Relationship.  "OS*  *f  ^ 


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